Talk:Franz Schmidt (composer)

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Variations on a Hussar's Song[edit]

I have a recording of this lovely piece, but not the score. The rhythm of the main theme intrigues me. It appears to be 2 bars of 15/4 followed by 2 bars of 23/4, although I suspect it's more like:

3 bars of 4/4
1 bar of 3/4
repeat the above 2 lines
5 bars of 4/4
1 bar of 3/4
repeat the above 2 lines.

Can anybody with a score confirm this? Thanks. JackofOz 01:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're absolutely spot-on, Jack!

Neil Saunders

Thank you, Neil. Do you know where the score is available? JackofOz 13:12, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure it's currently in print, Jack. If it is, you might be able to order it from the Franz-Schmidt Gesellschaft in Vienna (who are housed in the same building as the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde). They certainly have copies of the symphonies in miniature scores. Their address is Bosendorferstrasse Nr. 12 (the first "o" should have an umlaut, of course), A -1010 Wien, Musikvereinsgebaude, Austria. (e-mail: office@franzschmidtgesellschaft.at)

Good luck!

Neil

Great. Thanks again. JackofOz 02:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now available -- Musikmph (Munich) miniature score no.298. (see MPH link.) Also (PD-Europe-and-Canada only, since published after 1922 and renewed properly) - IMSLP workpage of Variationen über ein Husarenlied. Schissel | Sound the Note! 01:23, 3 September 2017 (UTC) (edit: the MPH reprint has in fact been available since way back in 2004!)[reply]

Schmidt and the Nazis[edit]

Man verzeihe mir, dass ich hier in deutscher Sprache schreibe. Ich möchte nämlich nicht, dass wegen eventueller Grammatikfehler in meinem keineswegs vollkommenen Englisch das Folgende an Verständlichkeit einbüßt: Schmidts letztes Werk, die Kantate "Deutsche Auferstehung", ist zwar auf einen nationalsozialistischen Text komponiert, aber meines Wissens geschah das keineswegs, weil Schmidt sich zu Hitler bekannte. Er, als berühmtester lebender Komponist Österreichs, bekam nach dem "Anschluss" den Auftrag zu diesem Werk. Er widmete sich der Komposition nur halbherzig und hinterließ sie in sehr fragmentarischem Zustand (später vollendet von Robert Wagner). Lieber schrieb Schmidt, schon schwer krank, an anderen Werken ua. an einem Klavierquintett. Ich denke, dass man die Nicht-Fertigstellung der Kantate als Zeichen dafür ansehen kann, dass der Komponist keineswegs NS-Sympathisant war. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Adrian_L.

Translation:

Forgive me for writing in German; I do not want my meaning to be obscured by my less-than-perfect English.

Schmidt's last work, the cantata "German Resurrection," was composed to a Nazi text but to my knowledge not becaused Schmidt endorsed Hitler. As the most famous living composer of Austria Schmidt received this commission after the "Anschluss" (Germany's annexation of Austria). He worked on this composition only half-heartedly and left it in a very fragmentary state (it was later completed by Robert Wagner). Schmidt, already seriously ill, worked instead on other compositions such as a piano quintet. His failure to complete the cantata is an indication that the composer was by no means a Nazi sympathizer.

Note: The above was our best attempt to render the sense of the German. An edited version was combined with a paragraph formerly under the composition "Freigundis", under the heading "Schmidt and the Nazis". --Chris B. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.131.30 (talk) 16:38, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is it too much to hope that someone will at some point explain what precisely is meant here by "a Nazi/National Socialist text"? Without being told what, if anything, makes it 'Nazi', one has no idea what the charge actually amounts to... Pfistermeister (talk) 14:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Having reworked the above translation I add the following:

Peter Franklin (The Case of Franz Schmidt, The Musical Times, Vol. 130, No. 1752 (Feb., 1989), pp. 64-66) http://www.jstor.org/pss/966348 writes

that Schmidt was working at the time of his death on a cantata entitled Deutsche Auferstehung which included a reworking of the Fuga Solemnis that he himself described as expressing “the awakening of the Reich’s power after the humiliation of the dictated peace terms”. (quoted in Norbert Tschulik: Franz Schmidt (London 1980), Angela Tolstoshev, tr., 120) The cantata’s final words (by Oskar Dietrich) were ‘Wir wollen unsren Führer sehn! Wir danken unsrem Führer! Sieg Heil!‘ (I am indebted to Nigel Simeone for this information.)

The” final words” were of course not Dietrich's invention but standard for the ritual of mass-ovations to Hitler: “We want to see our Führer, we thank our Führer ..."

Keith Anderson speaks only of "tendentious texts " http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.570589&catNum=570589&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English

Schmidt’s Fuga Solemnis ... was written for the inauguration of the new organ for the Vienna Broadcasting Station in the summer of 1937. After the Anschluss it was reworked as an interlude in the politically motivated cantata Deutsche Auferstehung (German Resurrection), with tendentious texts by his pupil Oskar Dietrich, first performed after Schmidt’s death. The Fuga Solemnis remains in itself, nevertheless, an impressive tribute to the composer’s mastery of counterpoint and to his originality and inventiveness. --91.62.71.218 (talk) 14:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC) now signed --Vsop.de (talk) 15:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There was a very enlightening essay in a Musikverein monthly of 2007 by Dr. Joachim Reiber on whether Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus has something to do with Franz Schmidt's oratorio "The Book with Seven Seals" (no!) and on Schmidt's uncompleted Cantata "German Resurrection". There User:Pfistermeister will find what he/she wants to know.

https://www.musikverein.at/monatszeitung/show_artikel.php?artikel_id=855

--Vsop.de (talk) 14:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An article that might contribute to the discussion: https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/29/about-franz-schmidt-composer-hitler Orgelspielerkmd (talk) 15:23, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some more information I found while working on a related project: This article in the Musical Quarterly [1] covers Schmidt and his politics in detail (the political section begins on the 18th page), while the editor of that journal disputes the interpretation in this other article from the same issue [2]. Toadspike (talk) 19:09, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus[edit]

The 3rd paragraph of The Book with Seven Seals should be deleted. It is tempting to assume that Franz Schmidt's oratorium could have been the model for Leverkühn's in Thomas Mann's novel but there is actually nothing to support that. Decades of intense research with publication of Mann's diaries and correspondence have not produced the slightest hint that Mann even knew of Schmidt's composition. Schmidt or his work are nowhere mentioned and especially not in the book Thomas Mann wrote about the making of the novel (The Story of a Novel: The Genesis of Doctor Faustus) where he disclosed his sources and inspirations. On the other hand: what could have been more appropriate for doomed Leverkühn to turn into music than the apocalypse? That it was (or had to be) suggested to Mann by Schmidt's composition is claimed nowhere else but in the English Wikipedia. --91.62.71.218 (talk) 18:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC) now signed--Vsop.de (talk) 15:08, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Schmidt and Bruckner[edit]

In response to Mdwmus (see the old revision of this article, as edited by her/him):

Needless to emphasize, something which somebody inherited and continued to develop was a model for him.

As for Bruckner as Schmidt's docent, the actual fact becomes obvious from this:

Als ich ihn [Bruckner] kennen lernte, war er bereits ein schwerkranker Mann und die wenigen Stunden, die ich bei ihm nehmen konnte, war er sehr hinfällig.
When I got to know him [Bruckner], he was already a seriously ill man, and at the few lessons I could take from him he was very frail.

— Franz Schmidt, letter to Julius Bistron (April 1919?), Carl Nemeth: Franz Schmidt. Wien 1957, p. 43. Cited in: Anton Bruckner Institut Linz – Anton Bruckner Chronologie Datenbank

This fact is irrelevant in regard to the given context (section "Musical works"), but it should be mentioned in the section "Life".

--Johanna Web (talk) 04:56, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]