Hindemith: Trauermusik

A Czech conductor who excelled worldwide. Martin Turnovsky recordings for the first time on CD.

Paradoxically, a greater opportunity to witness the artistry of the remarkable Czech conductor Martin Turnovsky, whose teachers included Karel Ančerl and George Szell, has been afforded to audiences abroad.

After winning the international conducting competition in Besancon (1958), he had to wait almost a decade for the real launch of his international career, since the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia prevented him from travelling around the world.

He was chief conductor of the Dresdner Staatskapelle and Staatsoper, and, after emigrating to the West at the end of the 1960s, led the Operas in Oslo and Bonn, guest-conducted the New York Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and other major orchestras. Only after the regime change in Czechoslovakia in 1989 could he renew his work with orchestras on home soil. In the 1960s he made numerous recordings for Supraphon. The majority of those presented on these discs are now available on CD for the first time. They bear witness to Turnovsky’s distinct talent, which several years later would dazzle to the full in front of the world’s most renowned orchestras.

Lawrence Power’s revelationary series of Hindemith’s complete works for the viola continues into a third and final volume with the music for viola and orchestra. Hindemith was an internationally renowned viola player himself, and his legacy for the instrument is an inestimably important body of work. Throughout this series, Power’s searingly vivid and eloquent performances have left critics and the listening public in no doubt that the somewhat ‘difficult’ reputation of the composer is ill-deserved; that this is music full of striking melodic ideas, deep lyrical feeling and high drama.

The works recorded here include Hindemith’s only formally titled concerto for viola and full orchestra, ‘Der Schwanendreher’, based on old German folk-songs. Hindemith explained that in this concerto he saw the soloist as an itinerant fiddler who comes among convivial company and plays for them the repertoire he has learned on his travels, and like a good folk-fiddler, embellishes the melodies freely and sometimes fantastically. This whimsical idea succinctly describes the procedures of the three movements: and it is clear from the unaccompanied solo which begins the first of them that the folksongs are always given Hindemith’s personal colouring. Also included is one of Hindemith’s most celebrated works: ‘Trauermusik’, written at great speed for a BBC broadcast of his music when King George V had died the day before and funeral music had to replace the planned programme. It is a shining example of an ‘occasional composition’ that far transcends its occasion and makes a distinct contribution to the general repertoire. Closely allied in tone to the more reflective portions of the opera Mathis der Maler, it is a grave, shapely and eloquent lament, with a special quality of intimacy.

Recognizing their historical importance, in November 2009 Ismeron bought the rights to the compilation of the American recordings made by Paul Hindemith for RCA Victor in April 1939. They were transferred and remastered by Mark Obert-Thorn for Biddulph Recordings and first issued on CD in 1993. This important release includes a high proportion of the recordings which Hindemith made as violist performing his own works and, we believe, the only recording of him playing the piano.

The CD includes a new 12 page booklet with notes in English and German (prepared in consultation with the Hindemith Institut in Frankfurt on Main) and two photographs of Hindemith: one holding his viola, the other with pianist Jesús Maria Sanromá.

Tabea Zimmermann commemorates the 50th anniversary of death of Paul Hindemith with the recording of his complete works for viola. Hindemith is regarded as a key composer for the instrument and was a famous violist, himself, and who premiered the viola concertos by Darius Milhaud and William Walton.

The works recorded here in Vol. 1 include the viola concerto 'Der Schwanendreher' that Hindemith composed at the time when he faced massive agitation by the Nazis, as well as the intimate and touching 'Trauermusik' (Music of Mourning), written for the funeral of King George V. Besides these celebrated works, the album also includes two lesser known concertos: the 'Kammermusik No. 5' and the early edition of the 'Konzertmusik' Op. 48a in its world premiere recording.

Tabea Zimmermann has teamed up with exceptional musical partners: the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Berlin, conducted by Hans Graf, who dedicate themselves to Hindemith’s legacy. A second volume will include the sonatas for solo viola and for viola and piano and will be released as a double album in Autumn 2013.