Schmidt, Franz

Schmidt, Franz

Notre Dame (Vocal Score with German libretto)

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On 22 April 1914 Hugo von Hofmannsthal sent one of his notoriously manipulative letters to his composer of choice, Richard Strauss:
Not long ago I heard here an opera by someone hitherto unknown […]. It seemed to me far superior to all the stuff from d’Albert, Schreker and so forth, yes, even Schreker, notwithstanding his talent. The remarkable thing about the opera, and that is why I mention it here, was that on first hearing I was able to understand almost the whole of the (incidentally absurd) text, and yet the music was by no means thin melodramatic stuff, only whenever the voice was to preponderate, everything else was kept in the background. I must confess it struck me as very beautiful […]. I am not telling you this for the sake of my own libretto – you know me well enough by now not to think that – but I want to suggest, wholly unqualified though I am, that there must be ways and means to let the word take command on occasion, and that, to my mind it would be a great gain if you could accomplish this in our present work.

The “present work” was Die Frau ohne Schatten, and despite Hofmannsthal’s sophistical efforts the words, as might be expected, vanished beneath one of Strauss’s most opulent scores. But who was the “hitherto unknown” composer, and what was his “very beautiful” opera? The answers to these questions take us to the world of Vienna’s conservative musical establishment between the world wars, a world swept aside by the Second World War and the advent of the international avant-garde. ..

read preface to full score /  Vorwort zur Partitur lesen > HER