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From:
Steven Schwartz <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 2 Jan 1999 16:55:36 -0600
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                Erwin Schulhoff

* Ogelala "Ballettmysterium," op. 53
* Suite, op. 37
* Symphony No. 2*

Saarbruecken Radio Symphony Orchestra/Oliver v. Dohnanyi, Marcello Viotti*
Arte Nova 74321 27802 2

Summary for the Busy Executive: Masterpiece and chips.

The Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff died in 1942 in the Wuelzburg
concentration camp.  A Communist and a Jew, thus doubly doomed, he had been
caught trying to flee to the East.  Not many have even heard his music,
much less know it - a comparable figure in that regard might be Goldschmidt
- but almost all of it is musical and well-written.  The Czech government
in the stereo LP era recorded his double concerto for flute and piano and
his cantata setting of the Communist Manifesto.

Schulhoff's compositional career shares many concerns with his compatriot
Martinu's.  Both had a "fling" with jazz - or what passed for it in the
European cabaret orchestras of the 1920s - deriving much of their approach
from works like Stravinsky's Ragtime, Tango, and L'Histoire du soldat.
>From there, both moved eventually to Stravinskian neo-classicism.  In
addition, Schulhoff went through a phase of Stravinskian "barbarism," which
Martinu avoided, just as Martinu began with Debussy, to whom Schulhoff
gave a miss (except as filtered through Stravinsky), learning from Reger
instead.  Unlike most European composers of the 1920s, Schulhoff knew real
jazz intimately.  He had caught the bug early and amassed one of the
largest private jazz record collections on the continent.  Consequently,
it's all the more curious that his use of jazz in classical works differs
not a whit from, say, Martinu's.  Again, Stravinsky, not Armstrong or
Morton, is the major influence, which probably testifies to the strength
of Stravinsky's example on almost every composer at the time.  Schulhoff's
Suite, op.  37 (1922), is a case in point.  The various movements -
"Ragtime," "Valse Boston," "Tango," "Shimmy," "Step," and "Jazz" - draw on
the same sets of dances, even titles, as a work like Martinu's Revue de
Cuisine.  Indeed, if one played "drop-the-needle" on Schulhoff's "Shimmy"
and Martinu's (from the ballet Who Is the Most Powerful in the World?, also
1922), one would find oneself hard-pressed to figure out which belonged to
which.  In this case, Martinu did it earlier, and Stravinsky did it first.

Still, Schulhoff entertains well on his own.  I've written elsewhere that
I consider him above all a "musical" composer, like Mozart or Schubert.
That is, I've never heard anything downright ugly, and I get no sense of
struggle from brain to paper, as in (say) Beethoven or Brahms.  The music
is "finished" and lean and never goes on longer than the material warrants.
It may well turn out that Schulhoff's music could have benefitted from such
a struggle.  Every note seems effortless and perfectly in place.  Ambition
- the sense of daring and excitement - largely absents itself from his
music, at least what I've heard so far.  On the other hand, one also
encounters moments of great fantasy and wit.  To me, the best movements of
the Suite (the earliest work recorded here), "Tango" and "Step," make a lot
out of a little.  The "Tango" comes across as a kind of sultry nocturne and
uses no more than three real parts.  The "B" section - for winds, strings
(keeping the beat), and discreet, tiny peals from the glockenspiel -
conjures up dancers seen and heard from a distance.  Throughout the
movement, Schulhoff varies his scoring with great imagination, without ever
raising his voice.  It's a study in wonderfully delicate textures.  "Step"
plays around with untuned percussion, though not in a particularly deep
way, as in the works of Varese or Bill Russell.  It's mostly fun.

Ogelala takes off from Stravinsky's Firebird and Le sacre du printemps.
Indeed, its plot is Le sacre Goes to Mexico - with Aztec sacrifice a
prominent feature.  One hears little riffs from both ballets - mainly
orchestral ideas - in Schulhoff's piece, although Schulhoff scores more
economically than Stravinsky in those two works.  The movements divide
up into "dance" and "narrative." The dance movements sound so close to
Le sacre and the narrative movements to Firebird that Stravinsky probably
should have gotten some of the royalties.  Indeed, this is the most
derivative score from Schulhoff I've heard.  One does hear moments of great
originality which make the borrowings all the more surprising.  My favorite
movement, the "Waffentanz" (weapons dance), uses Stravinskian tricks, but
the tricks work.  Furthermore, Schulhoff manages to get in a lot of his
own ideas, particularly in his use of percussion carrying the burden of
accompaniment.  Overall, the ballet doesn't convince me, but there's some
very interesting stuff indeed along the way.

The CD's major work, the Symphony No.  2, shows both a greater assurance
and a greater willingness to search for something personal, within the
general stylistic framework of neoclassicism.  But it's not Stravinsky's
neo-classicism, or Martinu's for that matter.  The first movement strikes
veins of both wit and genuine feeling - something akin to the last movement
of Weill's second symphony, but without Weill's acid.  Schulhoff's artistic
nature radiates sunshine rather than irony.  Even the slow movement is
meditative in a direct rather than oblique way, and moments of light keep
wanting to break through.  Schulhoff sings affectingly and in his own way.
The scherzo "alla Jazz" shows its jazz most clearly in a slow bluesy
contrast to the main idea - a trumpet tries to get down with its bad self
as a banjo strums - but the jazz still comes from Berlin rather than from
Harlem.  The finale reminds me of Mozart in its vivacity and comedy.  The
humor comes across as genuine and generous.  This is music of high
entertainment and great courtesy.  Nothing stays too long and, in Debussy's
great phrase, it "seeks humbly to please."

The performances are good, but not revelatory.  On the other hand, I'm not
sure that these works require revelation.  Oliver von Dohnanyi and Marcello
Viotti (the latter also has an interesting Poulenc CD) turn in crisp, clear
readings.  Sound is good.

Steve Schwartz

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