Franz Schmidt's 1934 Fourth Symphony has its *first* performance
here by the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Fabio Luisi
(http://sfsymphony.com/season/Event.aspx?eventid=26902).  Looking into
the background of this "unknown Hungarian" composer, I found not only
his "Notre Dame" (which may be known to some folks, not me), but also
"Fredigundis," real terra incognita.  Wiki says:

  A CD recording of Notre Dame has been available for many
  years, starring Dame Gwyneth Jones and James King. However
  no really adequate recording has been made of the far more
  interesting "Fredigundis," for which there was but one
  "unauthorized" release in the early 1980s on the Voce Label
  of an Austrian Radio broadcast of a 1979 Vienna performance
  under the direction of Ernst Marzendorfer. In it, among
  numerous "royal fanfares," (Fredigundis held the French
  throne in the 8th Century) are some of Schmidt's most
  wonderful and glorious pages.

  The New Grove states flatly that "Fredigundis" was a failure
  as Opera, but that is more likely attributable to the fact
  that Queen Fredigundis herself was anything but a "lovely
  lady," making the title character of _Berg's "Lulu" seem
  like a princess in comparison_. By the time Act III rolls
  around, things are pretty dismal and dark, and Schmidt is
  by this time harmonically on the threshold of Das Buch mit
  sieben Siegeln.  Despite some possible faults with the
  libretto, this is musically a wonderful opera which deserves
  a modern and fair hearing. It is unfortunate that Marzendorfer's
  1979 performance wasn't better recorded, because the
  performance - offstage choruses and brass fanfares and all
  - was veritably stupendous.

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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