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The
second cover made by Curt John Witt for the recording by Hans Wolf of
Symphony in D (César Franck).
See also:
The
Seattle Times
Andante Magazine
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Hans Wolf was
a friend of Marcel Prawy's and, like Prawy
and so many other refugees, enlisted in the Us Army during World War
II. He became a US citizen and was sent to Europe. Via Innsbruck he
returned to Vienna in 1945. But he did not stay for long. He finally
choose to settle in the US, but only after making a few recordings
for Don Gabor's Remington Records in 1950, conducting the Austrian
Symphony Orchestra.
Despite the low
quality of the recordings and pressings, and despite the few recordings
that were made of this conductor, one can hear that Hans Wolf was
a man who knew about styles and had insight in whatever score he would
bring to his audience. A Symphony of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
is playful and detailed, yet serious. The build up and development
of themes in César Franck's Symphony in D creates suspense
and excitement, while the structure of every movement comes to light.
Themes are detailed and lyrical. It it is not the heavy, slow and
ponderous Franck, but a somewhat faster, no less compelling rendering.
The performances must be the result of good communication and good
instruction, no doubt, but they also convey that the basis is talent.
Timing and phrasing are excellent. Dr. Wolf masters the score and
is in full control throughout. The recording greatly evokes his passion
for music. This is a remarkable performance full of nuances, and it
never fails to captivate the listener.
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Johannes
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major Op. 75 with the Austrian Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Hans Wolf - Remington R-199-19.
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Also his Brahms has the great line, the structural concept, asking
the utmost discipline and virtuosity of the orchestra. Wolf was a
creative musician, enjoying all sorts of music. He had imagination.
His enthusiasm must have been aroused very easily. "Let's do
it" could have been his life's motto. But he also had the energy
to work, to further the quality and to persevere in following his
ideas, sticking to them, and not being distracted at all. His artistic
insight, his feeling for the essence of the music, must have been
a natural gift, but was certainly heightened and shaped when studying
with legendary Heinrich Schenker.
Heinrich Schenker (June 19, 1868 - January 14, 1935) was a
musicologist, a composer, and a musician. He composed mainly
for piano, wrote Songs (Lieder), and made arrangements of
Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach, of Piano Concertos of Carl
Philip Emanuel Bach, and of Five Organ Concertos of Handel.
He also wrote an "explanation" to Beethoven's Sonatas
Op. 101, 109, 110 and 111. Searching for the essence of a
composition, he analyzed the music and discovered unexpected
complexities and structures existing within a composition,
presenting themselves in layers, showing the relationships
between melody lines and chords. He said that a composition
could be understood in its essence by defining the "Urlinie",
the kernel line, so to speak, and the "Ursatz",
the inner, basic structure. From an early day on Wilhelm
Furtwangler was a student of Schenker's (who himself had
studied with Anton Bruckner and had witnessed Brahms,
Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, Schönberg, and many other important
composers of the first half of the 20th century).
Wilhelm
Furtwangler had been struck by the ideas Schenker put forward
in his book "Beethovens Neunte Sinfonie"
(Beethoven's Ninth Symphony). Furtwangler tells in his essay
on Heinrich Schenker (published in "Ton und Wort",
1954), that he, quite by accident, picked up Schenker's book
in 1911, the time when he started his carreer in Lübeck
where he was "Kappelmeister".
Furtwangler did not agree with everything Schenker wrote and
he also found that Schenker could not hold on to his theory
of the "Urlinie" completely. Of greater importance
however is the idea introduced by Schenker called "Fernhören",
listening over a distance in time, a philosophical-psychological,
natural, inborn attitude of man. It means understanding the
music not in a pure historical perspective with dates and
occurrences in the life of the composer, but hearing it in
the perspective of evolution, grasping the earliest occurrences
in the history of mankind and one's own life, and relating
these to the present day and the present moment, and beyond.
More or less Carl Gustav Jung's "collective unconsciousness"
made conscious, I gather.
As is
so often the case when a great mind is devising a theory,
all and everything has to be explained in relation to the
original idea put forward. Nevertheless the Schenkerian ideas
about structure and counterpoint can intensify the study of
music and the performance of a compoisition more comprehensibly.
In that lies the importance of his approach.
Another writing of Schenker's was on Schubert's 8th Symphony
(Unfinished, Unvollendete), the Symphony that asks for a thorough
understanding of its structure and development, in order to
set the right pace and atmosphere, right from the first chord.
Schenker's publications are many.
Another
student of Schenker's was Carl Bamberger (1902-1987),
who started off as a cellist and became a conductor with great
timing and had control over the execution when conducting
many a composition. Carl Bamberger migrated to the USA and
became Director of the Orchestra and Opera Section of Mannes
College of Music, New York, in 1938. You can hear Carl Bamberger
on Musical Master Pieces Society recordings.
Schenker had many pupils and followers. Among them Paul
Hindemith, Otto Klemperer, and Arnold Schoenberg.
Understanding music in this perspective gives birth to a completely
new and greater concept of music in general and of a musical
work in particular.
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Hans
Wolf
studied for about two years with Schenker, from March 1933 till the
end of 1934, prior to Heinrich Schenker's death in January 1935.
In the correspondence of Oswald Jonas (another follower) to Heinrich
Schenker there is a letter describing a nasty occurrence in September
of 1934. After having traveled to Hamburg, young Hans Wolf, who was
Jewish, was denied by the Nazis to return to Vienna. (See: Schenker's
Correspondence). Through the intervention of Wilhelm Furtwangler,
he was allowed to return.
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Hans
Wolf in the nineteen sixties.
Picture courtesy the Seattle
Opera.
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Hans
Wolf
was originally from Hamburg, he was born in the Hansa town on December
5, 1912, came to Vienna to study at the University and received a
Ph.D. in 1937 with his thesis on the "Notions of Musical Movement
in the Teachings of Bass and Composition of the 18th Century as a
Continuation of the Instruction of the Counterpoint" (Die
musikalischen Bewegungsbegriffe in den Generalbaß- und Kompositionslehren
des 18. Jahrhunderts als Fortsetzung der Lehre vom Kontrapunkt).
The subject of his thesis shows the influence of Heinrich Schenker.
The political situation in Austria was getting more and more threatening.
The earlier Hamburg incident, the rumors that the Anschluss
(Annexation) could be at hand, and the fact that Hans had now finished
his studies and had received his title, these made the Wolf family
(Hans Wolf was 26 years of age) decide to migrate to the United States
where they found refuge, as so many Europeans who had fled for the
Nazis did.
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The
early release of Cesar Franck's Symphony in D conducted by Hans
Wolf - Remington RLP-199-36.
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In
the US, Wolf taught at John Fletcher College (Iowa) for a while. He
enlisted in the Army, probably in 1943, the same year as Marcel Prawy
did. Wolf became a translator, eventually was sent to Europe, and
finally returned to Vienna, to the musical culture that had formed
him. Like Berlin also Vienna was divided in sectors. Athough he later
daid that he was living it up, he must have experienced the cumbersome
and restricted atmosphere, and the fact that many just continued where
they had left off in 1938. He choose to go back and live in America
for good, thus escaping the trauma of his younger years. There are
at least two reported instances when he returned to Europe on a visit.
In 1953 he came to Vienna as Marcel Prawy recounted in his book "Marcel
Prawy talks about his life" (Marcel Prawy erzählt aus seinem
Leben, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna, 2001), and in 1958 and/or 1959
he must have traveled to Germany to conduct the Mannheim National
Symphony Orchestra.
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Hans
Wolf in the nineteen sixties. Images submitted by Monte Jacobson,
courtesy The Seattle Opera.
Picture courtesy the Seattle Opera.
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Hans
Wolf at 90, conducting Johann Strauss' Operetta The Gypsy Baron
in Seattle in 2003.
Picture courtesy the Seattle Opera.
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When Marcel Prawy started producing recorded performances
for Donald Gabor's Remington Records in 1950, he also asked Dr. Hans
Wolf, still living in Vienna, to join him. Wolf made recordings of
compositions by Brahms, Franck, Mozart, and by Haydn (with cellist
Gaspar Cassado).
After 1950 Wolf worked in America in various cities and with several
opera companies. For Four Star Television in Los Angeles he conducted
Aida (Verdi) and Carmen (Bizet). At the invitation of Glynn Ross,
the Seattle Opera's founding general director, and conductor Henry
Holt, Wolf became assistant and then associate conductor and chorus
master of the Seattle Opera from 1969 till 1981. He performed many
operas in English, often with his own translation, the Associated
Press reported. From 1981 until 1996 he led the revival of (co-founded)
Tacoma Opera, serving as artistic director and conductor.
In 2003 he was honored by Seattle's Mayor Greg Nickels by proclaiming
March 30, 2003 Hans Wolf Day. He also received congratulations from
Washington's governor and a special handwritten note from Beverly
Sills on "MET" stationery. On August 5, 2005, Hans Wolf
died in Seattle.
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Violoncellist
Gaspar Cassado plays Haydn's Cello Concerto with the Austrian
Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Wolf, and Mozart's
K 385 on a 10" Concerteum release from France: TCR 257.
At
left César Franck's Symphony in D on the German DIAMANT
label.
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The recordings of Hans Wolf for Remington Records:
R-149-9 Beethoven Symphony No. 5. The Austrian Symphony Orchestra.
From the Kurt Wöss Page:
On Masterseal MSLP 5008
Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Schubert's Symphony No. 8 conducted
by Kurt Wöss can be found, whereas there exists no Remington
disc with this coupling conducted by Wöss. Beethoven's Fifth
was released on a 10" disc (R-149-9) with the Vienna Symphonic
Society Orchestra conducted by Hans Wolf and Schubert's
Eighth was originally a recording with conductor H. Arthur Brown (R-149-15).
The name Wöss was probably a convenient substitute, especially
when Brown had fallen from grace and the Remington label ceased to
exist.
R-149-48 Beethoven Egmond Overture, conducted by Hans Wolf
(coupled with Overture Ruy Blas, Mendelssohn, conducted by George
Singer.
R-199-19 Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D Major Op. 73
R-199-36 Franck Symphony in D minor
R-199-79 Haydn Cello Concerto with Gaspar Cassado and Mozart
Symphony no. 35 "Haffner" (K 385)
R-149-33 Mozart Symphony No. 35 "Haffner" (K 385)
One may regret that Dr. Hans Wolf did not make more recordings for
the Remington label or another label. There is only one more recording
and that is when he conducted the Mannheim National Symphony Orchestra
in Haydn's Military Symphony (No. 100, in G), released on the Period
label, SHO-2321 in 1959.
Original text
written by Rudolf A. Bruil. Page first published March 25, 2008
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