Alexander Albrecht (arr. Ivan Buffa) - Lenz, Ballade

(1912 / istr. 1956 / arr. 2011) text : Agatha Albrecht - Messer
Quasars Ensemble, conductor - Ivan Buffa, Petra Noskaiová - mezzo-soprano

Alexander Albrecht (12 August 1885, Arad - 30. August 1958, Bratislava)
The personality of the composer Alexander Albrecht belongs to one of the most singular and unique phenomena of Slovak musical culture comparable perhaps only with synthesizing personality of J. L. Bella. Alexander Albrecht is virtually the first Slovak author to be able to keep up with the compositional trends that were currently in progress in other European countries and especially in Vienna. Artistic value of his work can be compared to what we find in works of Gustav Mahler, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, repre- sentatives of the Second Viennese School, Paul Hindemith et al. in the beginning of the 20th century. He was born and spent his childhood in Arad, acquired education at a secondary school in Bratislava and at the Academy of Music in Budapest. He preferred this school to the school in Vienna being advised by his older school mate Bartók, who later became his teacher and friend. His teachers thus include German composer Hans Koessler, István Thomán (born in Humenné, a student of Franz Liszt,), Franz Szandtner, David Popper and of course Béla Bartók. Therefore he was influenced by German musical culture (especially by disciples of Johannes Brahms, as Koessler adored Brahms and everything connected with him), by the Hungarian interpretative school which was already on a high level, but known also by its con- servative critical view of modern impressionistic or expressionistic tendencies. These were completely strange to the musical environment in Budapest. After his studies he returned to Bratislava and being the best educated musician active in Slovakia he became the director of the Church Music Society and of the City Music School. He devoted all his creative energy to Slovak culture, thanks to him music of the highest quality was played in Bratislava and the town was visited by the most prominent soloists of that time. He also dealt with composing but could spend less time with it than he actually wished. In spite of this he created a large number of excellent works. The most significant ones include Suita, Tobias Wunderlich, Desires and Reminiscences for orchestra, among his chamber works we should mention Scherzo for string orchestra, modern vocal-instrumental Three Poems from the cycle Das Marienleben (The Life of Mary) based on the text of R. M. Rilke, a great number of piano and chamber works (a successful String Quar tet and Piano Quintet, Concert Suite for Viola and Piano, Piano Trio etc.), Sonatina for 11 instruments as a contribution to "Kammersymphonie" which was popular at that time, several choirs, and finally about 40 fascinating songs that he composed, with interruptions, in the course of his entire life. These can be, no doubt, compared to the first song opuses by Arnold Schönberg or Alban Berg, to song cycles by Gustav Mahler or Alexander Zemlinsky. In the song Night a lot of similarities with Bluebeard ́s Castle by Bartók can be caught, in the songs Natur and Antwort we can even perceive the influence of the mature Schönberg and Webern but in an individual inimitable charming form. It is fascinating how Albrecht managed, within an area of a few measures, often in less than two minutes, to put the whole story of an anonymous text from a Vienna newspaper to music in the song Friedhofsgras (Cemetery Grass), to catch the whole concentrated draw of the poetic text by H. Hesse or R. Volker in the songs Mein Herz (My Heart), Heimkehr (Return Home), In der Winternacht (At Winter Night) and last but not least to develop the expression of late Romanticism in the mature songs such as Der Verdammte (The Damned), Uralte Nacht (Immemorial Night), Wiegenliedchen (Lullaby), Reue (Sorrow) and Rosezeit (Time of Roses) the motif of which is a basic structural element of the Piano Quintet. The modern and inventive Two Poems based on the text by K. Kadosa, the extensive ballad Night based on the text by S. Petőfi, Three Poems about Mary for soprano, choir and orchestra and other chamber works, highly appreciated by the Austrian and German critics of that time, record the current compo- sitional tendencies of that period very exactly and give a solid foundation for the rising generation of composers. With the works by Alexander Albrecht the Slovak musical culture fully participates in the culminating 19th century musical development. At the same time it witnesses the disintegration of the structure of tonal system.

Category:

Music

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• Alexander Albrecht
• Albrecht
• Lenz
• Quasars ensemble
• ensemble
• music
• classical
• Petra Noskaiova
• songs