Franz Schmidt - Symphony 모음[ No.1,2,3,4]

Franz Schmidt

  (22 December 1874 – 11 February 1939) was an Austrian composer, cellist and pianist

Symphony 모음[ No.1,2,3,4]

Schmidt is generally, if erroneously, regarded as a conservative composer (such labels rest upon yet-to-be-resolved aesthetic/stylistic arguments), but the rhythmic subtlety and harmonic complexity of much of his music belie this. His music is modern without being modernist, combining a reverence for the great Austro-German lineage of composers with very personal innovations in harmony and orchestration (showing an awareness of the output of composers such as Debussy and Ravel, whose piano music he greatly admired, along with a knowledge of more recent composers in his own German-speaking realm, such as Schoenberg, Berg, Hindemith, etc.). The considerable technical accomplishment of his music ought to compel respect, but he seems to have fallen between two stools: his works are too complex for the conservatively minded, yet too obviously traditional for the avant-garde (they are also notoriously difficult to perform). Since the 1970s his music has enjoyed a modest revival which looks set to continue as it is rediscovered and re-evaluated.

• Symphony No. 1 in E major.
  Written in 1896 at age 22. The scherzo (which shows a mature absorption of Bruckner and Richard Strauss) is especially noteworthy, while Schmidt demonstrates his contrapuntal skills in the Finale.
• Symphony No. 2 in E flat major.
  Written in 1913 in a style reminiscent of Strauss and Reger, with homage to the grandiosity of Bruckner. This is Schmidt's longest symphony and it employs a huge orchestra. The central movement (of three) is an ingenious set of variations, which are grouped to suggest the characters of slow movement and scherzo. The complex scoring renders it a considerable challenge for most orchestras.
• Symphony No. 3 in A major.
•  A sunny, melodic work in the Schubert vein (although its lyricism and superb orchestration do much to conceal the fact that it is one of the composer's most harmonically advanced works). Winner of the Austrian section of the 1928 International Columbia Graphophone Competition, it enjoyed some popularity at the time (1928).
• Symphony No. 4 in C major.
  Written in 1933, this is the best-known work of his entire oeuvre. The composer called it "A requiem for my daughter". It begins with a long 23-bar melody on an unaccompanied solo trumpet (which returns at the symphony's close, "transfigured" by all that has intervened). The Adagio is an immense ABA ternary structure. The first A is an expansive threnody on solo cello (Schmidt's own instrument) whose seamless lyricism predates Strauss's Metamorphosen by more than a decade (its theme is later adjusted to form the scherzo of the symphony); the B section is an equally expansive funeral march (deliberately referencing Beethoven's Eroica in its texture) whose dramatic climax is marked by an orchestral crescendo culminating in a gong and cymbal crash (again, a clear allusion to similar climaxes in the later symphonies of Bruckner, and followed by what Harold Truscott has brilliantly described as a "reverse climax", leading back to a repeat of the A section).