Stucken, Frank van der

Frank Van der Stucken – Pax triumphans op. 26. Sinfonischer Fest-Prolog für grosses Orchester (1900)

(Fredericksburg, Texas, 15 October 1858 – Hamburg, 16 August 1929)

(arrangement for two pianos by Theodor Bohlman
final chorus with organ or harmonium ad libitum)

Frank Van der Stucken composed Pax triumphans (‘Triumph of Peace’) for a grand choral festival in New York; with this work he also wanted to commemorate the end of the Spanish-American war. (This war which concerned the Spanish colonies in the Philippines and Cuba was fought in June and July 1898 and won by the United States.)

As a motto for the work Van der Stucken chose a verse by Alfred Lord Tennyson: ‘They do not die / nor lose their mortal sympathy / nor change to us, although they change.’ This verse is from the monumental poem In Memoriam A.H.H., which Tennyson completed in 1849 in memory of the sudden death in 1833 of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam.
Van der Stucken dedicated the work to the memory of the German-American Emily Balke-Schmidlapp (1858-1900), who died in a train crash on the Missouri Pacific on 27 February 1900. Her husband, Jacob Godfrey Schmidlapp, was a well-known philanthropist who was active as a board member of the Cincinnati Music Festival Association, which organised the biennial May Music Festival and which Van der Stucken led between 1906 and 1912, and between 1923 and 1927.

In an introduction to the score, Van der Stucken provides an extensive explanation of his work and the leitmotifs he uses. As a synopsis, he writes: ‘Inmitten einer Zeit, wo blutige Kriege das Mitgefühl der ganzen Welt erwecken, versammeln sich Sängerscharen, um das hehrste aller Friedenswerke zu verherrlichen.’ (‘In times when cruel wars arouse the compassion of the civilised world, the followers of art assemble to celebrate this loftiest work of peace.’) …

Read full English and Flemish preface  > HERE