The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff (Contributions to the Study of Music & Dance) - Hardcover

Wolff, Konrad

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0313307482 ISBN 13: 9780313307485

Verlag: Praeger, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

Even after acquiring the Doctor of Laws degree from both the University of Berlin and the Sorbonne (discussed in a letter, along with the effects of living in Europe during the Nazi era), Konrad Wolff's enthusiasm for music was so overwhelming that he became a professional musician in his mid-thirties. That enthusiasm is contagious. The more one reads his work, the more one understands music, but perhaps of greater importance, the more one loves it.

This is the only collection of a substantial quantity of his prolific writings (many never published before) under one cover. With almost 200 musical illustrations and his engaging style of writing, teachers, students, and sophisticated music lovers will find articles such as Schubert's Reaction to Beethoven, Bach's Last Work, and Beethovenian Dissonances in Listz's Piano Music a pleasurable read and an easy way to learn. Correspondence with Sviatoslav Richter, among others, and a brilliant debate between Wolff and Alfred Brendel are unique contributions. Also impressive is the breadth of Wolff's culture. As one scholar who had read the manuscript exclaimed: The writing is so brilliant that it can be applied to fields other than music, as well.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

RUTH GILLEN, a pianist, studied with the duo-pianists Vronsky and Babin, and with Konrad Wolff. She is a graduate of the High School of Music and Art in New York City, and received Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees from Hunter College and Columbia University respectively.

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

By Ruth Gillen, Otto Begus

Indiana University Press

Copyright © 2006 Ruth Gillen
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-313-30748-5

Contents

Prologue Leon Fleisher, xiii, 
Foreword Russell Sherman, XV, 
Preface, xvii, 
Acknowledgments, xix, 
Biographical Sketch, xxi, 
Part I COMPOSERS, 
Frescobaldi (1583–1643), 3, 
Bach (1685–1750), 7, 
His Last Work 7 Spirit, Style, and Forms, 9, 
Bach-Reger, 17, 
Brandenburg Concertos for Piano Duet, 17, 
Mozart (1756–1791), 19, 
Quintet in D Major, K. 593, 19, 
Beethoven (1770–1827), 23, 
Several Perspectives, 23, 
Mostly Beethoven, 27, 
On Beethoven's Trills, 42, 
Bagatelles, Op. 119, 51, 
The Ninth Symphony, Op. 125, 53, 
Schubert (1797–1828), 77, 
Schubert's Reaction to Beethoven, 77, 
Schubert's "L'istesso Tempo", 84, 
Schubert's String Quintet in C: Misplaced Repeat Sign?, 93, 
Schumann (1810–1856), 99, 
On Titles and Verbal Descriptions in Music, 99, 
Liszt (1811–1886), 105, 
Beethovenian Dissonances in Liszt's Piano Works, 105, 
Liszt's Approach to Piano Technique, 113, 
Stravinsky (1882–1971), 119, 
A Modern Faust, 119, 
Part II LETTERS, 
From: Paul Badura-Skoda; Review of Interpretation on the Piano — What We Can Learn from Schnabel, 123, 
Alfred Brendel, 131, 
Paul Henry Lang, 136, 
Rudolf Serkin, 137, 
To:, 
Leon Fleisher, 137, 
Artur Schnabel, 139, 
To and From:, 
A Colleague, 142, 
Sviatoslav Richter, 148, 
Part III MISCELLANY, 
Christmas Music, 161, 
Music Appreciation 101, 173, 
Authenticity, 183, 
The Beginnings of Cyclic Form, 185, 
Bach's Dedication to King Frederick, 199, 
August Halm (1869–1929), 201, 
Observations, 207, 
On Teaching, 207, 
On Music and Musicians, 213, 
A Lesson in Writing, 217, 
Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782): Siciliano in F-Sharp Minor, 225, 
Part IV THE BRENDELWOLFF "DEBATE, 
The "Debate", 230, 
Addendum by Alfred Brendel, 242, 
Notes, 245, 
Selected Bibliography, 263, 
Index, 265, 

CHAPTER 1

FRES COB ALDI (1583–1643)

Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian organist and composer, is considered by some to be the first great master of organ composition. In the preface of a few of his works, he gives valuable clues to performance practices in his time. After concluding a statement about the necessity of overcoming technical difficulties through practice, he writes: "Should a player find it tedious to play a piece right through he may choose such sections as he pleases, provided only that he ends in the main key." Regarding tempos: "The opening passages should be played slowly so that what follows may appear more animated. The player should broaden the tempo at cadences ...." On trills and expression: "If one hand has a trill, while the other plays a 'passage,' do not play note against note but play the trill rapidly and the other expressively."

Introducing a lecture-recital on Bach in London, c. 1950, Wolff discusses the neglect of "old" composers and extols the genius of Frescobaldi in particular.

At the time when I was a child, the general music-loving public believed that great music, our music, began with Bach and Handel. All earlier masters were of merely historic interest. The names of Palestrina, Schütz, and Corelli were known, but not their works. Those of Frescobaldi, Vivaldi, Monteverdi, not to mention Josquin des Prés or William Byrd, were completely unknown even to the professional. It may have been different in England, and I would be anxious to know whether British audiences were as familiar with Byrd and Dowland then as they are now.

Anyway, at the time I am speaking of, around 1910 to 1925, it was frequently said that if Bach was the greatest of all composers it was because he was the first, the originator of it all. But in the meantime we have experienced a general rediscovery of old music and old instruments....

Our knowledge of old music has become so general that at last the former patronizing attitude of the average music lover toward the old masters has disappeared. The beauty of some of their works is enjoyed directly in our day, by which I mean not only by a mental comparison with Bach and Handel: "See how Schütz already anticipates Bach's Passions," and that sort of thing.

I have chosen a Toccata by Frescobaldi, not only because I consider it a great masterwork but also because Frescobaldi was the earliest of the masters who directly influenced Bach. We know for a fact that Bach knew and studied some of his works. Frescobaldi could be called the Franz Liszt of the 17th century. He was organist at St. Peter's and his glamorous improvising was so famous that on solemn occasions many thousands of people assembled outside St. Peter's to hear him play. At the same time, like Liszt, he was intellectual and experimental.

"Toccata," in Frescobaldi's oeuvre, means exactly what it later means in Buxtehude and Bach: a keyboard piece in different short sections following each other without a real pause and unconnected in meter and speed, the whole being held together by the use of a few basic motives. The only difference is that in Frescobaldi, the sections are much shorter and therefore convey an even more improvisational atmosphere. The basic motive, in this instance, is furnished by the very first beginning.

If you compare this work with Bach's Toccatas or Phantasies, it will strike you how much more domesticated, tame, and regular they seem — although within Bach's own oeuvre they constitute a particularly spontaneous type of composition. ... The reason, of course, is not to be found in any lack of imagination or courage on Bach's side. Nobody was more daring than he and more imaginative. However, Bach could create only in the pursuit of a big musical idea, and every single trait had to be subordinated to this idea, which makes for concessions in the freedom of musical detail. His toccatas, free as they are in rhythm and meter, do not quite measure up to Frescobaldi's diversity of patterns, which one might compare with the language of a poet who historically would stand just on the border line between the medieval and present-day language, using the old grammar and vocabulary in all their wealth alternately with modern simplified word endings, so that the reader of today finds himself at home yet enjoys the embellishments furnished by the older elements.

The toccata you are going to hear, and which was published in 1637, that is, 3 generations before Bach's works in the same form, gives a beautiful sample of his art. To the glamour of the improvisational richness and inventiveness is added a deliberate fusion of different styles, old church modes and modern tonalities, strict counterpoint writing in dissonant intensity — some passages indeed almost sound as if Stravinsky had looked them over. ... The wealth of the texture is enriched by sharp contrasts between flowing passages in even notes, and sharp rhythms, often in complex juxtaposition of duple time and triple time — here, too, an older and a newer style seem to be fused and integrated. Since the piece does not use the pedal of the organ it can be played on the piano exactly the way the composer wrote it, except for the overtone effects through doubling. The tone-colors — which, of course, would be slightly different...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Praeger
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2000
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0313307482
• ISBN 13: 9780313307485
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 310
• Herausgeber: Gillen Ruth
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland