Lendvai, Erwin

Erwin Lendvai – Archaische Tänze: neun sinfonische Reigen für kleines Orchester, op. 30

(b. Budapest, Jun 4, 1882 – d. Epsom, Surrey, Mar 21, 1949

1. Ptah p.3
2. Šiva p.9
3. Eros Thanatos p.26
4. Sakraler Reigen p.33
5. Arkadia p.49
6. Astarte p.55
7. Römischer Waffentanz p.76
8. Odalisken p.101
9. Maurisches Tanzfest p.130

Preface
Erwin Lendvai (Loewenfeld) was born in Budapest on 4 June 1882. After studying with Hans Koessler at the Music Academy of Budapest, in 1905 he travelled to Milan with a grant to study with Giacomo Puccini and a year later he settled in Germany, where he began his career as a composer and music teacher. Over the next years, during which his works were regularly performed, he taught at the Dalcroze School in Hellerau, the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin, while he also contributed articles on music to the press, including the journal Sozialistische Monatshefte. In the 1920s he held several posts as a choral conductor and teacher, and by the end of that decade he was already acknowledged as a masterful composer, particularly distinguished for his choral works. The early 1930s saw Lendvai leaving Germany due to the rise to power of the Nazi Party. After moving to numerous cities across Europe, in 1938 he settled in Kenninghall, England, where he taught music.

Lendvai wrote a large number of vocal works, including music for men’s, women’s and mixed choir, and the opera Elga (1916/18). He also composed chamber and orchestral music, the latter including Masken Op.7, Symphony in D Op.10 (Musikproduktion Höflich SKU: 4337), Suite for chamber orchestra Op.32, and Archaic Dances Op.30.

Archaic Dances was written in 1921 and published in 1922 by N. Simrock, Berlin. Rich in artistic imagination and high in craftsmanship, it is a series of nine dances scored for a small symphony orchestra, in which each dance acquires its individual character through the allusion to a symbolic representation of a civilisation of the distant or nearer past. In 1923 the work received its successful premiere as a ballet in Mannheim, and in the same year it was performed, possibly as a standalone orchestral composition, in Arnhem, Netherlands. More performances followed in Bochum and Wiesbaden (1924), Eisenach (1927), and Flensburg (1929).

Maria Theofili , 2020

Bibliography
– Anton, Carl. „Aus Mannheim“. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (2. Juni 1923): 237-8.
– „Aus Konzert und Oper“. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (2. Juni 1923): 243-4.
– Bergfeld, Joachim. „Eisenach“. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Heft 12 (Dez.1927): 712-3.
– Kolland, Hubert. “Lendvai, Erwin.” Deutsche Biographie. https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz50206.html
– „Konzerte“. Die Musik XXI/8 (Mai 1929): 631
– Kuhn, Laura, and Nicholas Slonimsky, eds. “Lendvai, (Peter) Erwin.” In Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Vol. 3. New York: Schirmer Reference, 2001.
https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Creference_article%7C1002922720.
– Leichtentritt, Hugo. “German Music of the Last Decade.” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr. 1924): 193-218. https://www.jstor.org/stable/738268
– „Persönliches“. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (3. März 1923): 117-8.
– „Persönliches“. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (2. Juni 1923): 245.
– Traber, Habakuk and Elmar Weingarten, eds. Verdrängte Musik. Berliner Komponisten im Exil. Berlin: Argon, 1987.

For performance material please contact Boosey & Hawkes, Berlin.