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Othmar Schoeck

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Volkmar Andreae (5 July 1879 – 18 June 1962) was a Swiss conductor and composer.

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19-579: Othmar Schoeck (1 September 1886 – 8 March 1957) was a Swiss Romantic classical composer , opera composer , musician , and conductor . He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles , though he also wrote a number of operas, notably his one-act Penthesilea , which was premiered at the Semperoper in Dresden in 1927 and revived at the Lucerne Festival in 1999. He wrote

38-594: A child and his first lessons in composition with Karl Munzinger . From 1897 to 1900, he studied at the Cologne Conservatory and was a student of Fritz Brun , Franz Wüllner , Isidor Seiss and Friedrich Wilhelm Franke . In 1900 he was a soloist tutor at the Munich Hofoper. In 1902 he took over the leadership of the Mixed Choir of Zürich ( Der Gemischte Chor Zürich ), where he remained until 1949, also leading

57-586: A conductor (especially with the works of Anton Bruckner ). He composed opera, symphony and chamber music, piano, violin, and oboe concertos, piano music, as well as choir music and songs. He died in Zürich . He is mentioned in Chapter XXI of Thomas Mann 's novel Doctor Faustus , where he is cited as conducting the Thirteen Brentano Lieder by the fictional composer Adrian Leverkühn. This fictional concert

76-452: A girl hanging on a wall of the shop. The picture comes to life, and in typical Busoni fashion, the scene immediately dissolves into a fantastical Chinese temple. The opera ends with Novalis awaking from his dream-state and escaping from the shop into the reality of the street. It is one of Schoeck's most unusual creations, "almost minimalist in conception." Around 1918 Schoeck's music began a stylistic shift. At this time he became involved with

95-566: A handful of instrumental compositions, including two string quartets and concertos for violin (for Stefi Geyer , dedicatee also of Béla Bartók 's first concerto), cello and horn . Schoeck was born in Brunnen , studied briefly at the Leipzig Conservatory with Max Reger in 1907/08, but otherwise spent his whole career in Zürich. His father, Alfred Schoeck was a landscape painter, and as

114-568: A letter to Volkmar Andreae , saying: "Schoeck has completely abandoned me. I have not entirely given him up. He lacks (or lacked ) certain ingredients, which are not available at the chemists'. Which should however be manufactured in his own laboratory." In the summer of 1923 Schoeck visited Arthur Honegger in Paris, and he later participated in the Salzburg ISCM festival. Not long afterwards, his affair with de Senger came to an end. His distress over

133-457: A prelude and the first scene, but lost interest and dropped the project. Undaunted, in June 1918 Busoni offered it to Schoeck. Schoeck, who appears to have taken the offer as a sort of challenge, immediately set aside the orchestration of Don Ranudo , and in three days, produced the new opera. Das Wandbild is set in a Parisian antique shop around 1830. A student, Novalis, is captivated by a picture of

152-546: A substantial number of composers, especially those born after 1860, whose works cannot be conveniently classified as " Romantic ", or those whose early compositions did begin in the Romantic style but later developed beyond it in the 20th century. Repertoire key: B=In Classical Net's basic Timeline of Major Composers 1600–present Notes Sources Volkmar Andreae Andreae was born in Bern . He received piano instruction as

171-579: A young man, Othmar seriously considered following in his father's footsteps and attended classes an art school in Zürich before dropping out to go to the Zürich Conservatory . During World War I Schoeck earned his living in Zurich initially as a chorus director and as a freelance accompanist and conductor. An annuity given him by the Winterthur industrialist Werner Reinhart from 1916 onwards, coupled with

190-520: Is now the Czech Republic. A European-wide debate took place, particularly in Germany, on what the ideal course of music was, following Beethoven's death . The New German School —primarily Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner —promoted progressive ideas, in opposition to more conservative composers such as Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann . Note that this list is purely chronological, and includes

209-809: The Stadtsängerverein Winterthur from 1902 to 1914 and the Männerchor Zürich from 1904 to 1914. From 1906 to 1949, he led the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich ; and from 1914 to 1939, the Conservatory of Zürich. (He was offered the opportunity of succeeding Gustav Mahler as conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1911, but he declined.) Later he worked as freelance composer in Vienna and worked internationally as

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228-404: The breakup, combined with the shock of the new music he had heard in Paris and Salzburg, seems to have led to a new maturity in his compositional style. Two weeks after his affair ended, he composed the song Die Entschwundene (1923), which was "as much a farewell to the tonal world of his previous music as to his departed lover." Schoeck was not given to overt signs of gratitude, but he dedicated

247-1143: The broader Romanticism movement of Europe, Ludwig van Beethoven , Gioachino Rossini and Franz Schubert are often seen as the dominant transitional figures composers from the preceding Classical era . Many composers began to channel nationalistic themes, such as Mikhail Glinka , The Five and Belyayev circle in Russia; Frédéric Chopin in Poland; Carl Maria von Weber and Heinrich Marschner in Germany; Edvard Grieg in Norway; Jean Sibelius in Finland; Giuseppe Verdi in Italy; Carl Nielsen in Denmark; Pablo de Sarasate in Spain; Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar in England; Mykola Lysenko in Ukraine; and Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák in what

266-630: The income from his appointment as conductor of the St Gall Symphony orchestra in 1917 (with special permission to remain resident in Zürich), allowed Schoeck to give up choral conducting and devote more time to composition instead. In 1916, Schoeck became acquainted with Ferruccio Busoni , who had moved to Zurich from Berlin to escape the adverse effects of the war. Busoni was not alone in coming to Zurich. The war had turned "provincial" Zurich, in neutral Switzerland, into an international metropolis. Schoeck

285-464: The pianist Mary de Senger, who appears to have had a profound influence on his compositional style. The second act of his next opera, Venus (1919–1921), employs interesting polyrhythmic and bitonal effects. As he became acquainted with the work of Alban Berg and Les six in Paris, he began to feel isolated by his stylistic conservatism. By 1922 his former mentor, Busoni, who was now back in Berlin, wrote

304-497: The presence of Schoeck. Schoeck himself did not harbor Nazi sympathies, but the angry Swiss reaction to his actions damaged his reputation and put great strain on Schoeck. He suffered a heart attack in March 1944, but continued to compose. List of Romantic-era composers The Romantic era of Western Classical music spanned the 19th century to the early 20th century, encompassing a variety of musical styles and techniques. Part of

323-693: The song cycle Gaselen (1923), the Sonata for Bass Clarinet and Piano (1927–28), and the Suite in A flat for Strings (1945) to Werner Reinhart . His work with the German poet Hermann Burte on the opera Das Schloss Dürande , for production at the Berlin State Opera , caused great controversy for Schoeck with the Swiss, because of his association with artists of Nazi Germany. The opera was premiered in Berlin on 1 April 1943 in

342-402: Was a great admirer of the songs of Hugo Wolf ; Busoni disliked them, and he said so. Despite their differences, their relationship quickly developed into one of mutual respect, and even one with a bit of affection. In fact, it was Busoni's suggestion that Schoeck use Ludvig Holberg 's Don Ranudo de Colibrados as the subject of an opera. On 19 June 1917 Philipp Jarnach , a French composer who

361-536: Was also a refugee in Zurich, and an assistant of Busoni, gave Busoni a copy of Martin Buber 's book Chinesische Geister- und Liebesgeschichten [Chinese Ghost and Love Stories] (Frankfurt, 1911). Jarnach suggested that one of these short stories might be suitable for an opera. Busoni immediately wrote a libretto, Das Wandbild [The Picture on the Wall], a short scene and pantomime, which he finished eight days later. Jarnach composed

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