Weingartner, Felix

(Paul) Felix Weingartner, Edler von Münzburg
 – Spring, symphonic poem in variation form for large orchestra, op. 80

(2 June 1863, Zara [now Zadar], Dalmatia, Austro-Hungary [now Croatia] – 7 May 1942, Winterthur, Switzerland)

(Frühling, symphonische Dichtung in Form von Variationen für grosses Orchester, op. 80)

Dates of Composition: 1930-31
Premiere: October 1931, Aix-la-Chapelle, conducted by Peter Raabe
The composer was present for the premiere and observed rehearsals.
The concert was reviewed by the Frankfurter Zeitung on 21 October 1931
Full score published: 1931, C. A. Challier (Richard Birnbach), Berlin SW 68

The Conductor
Felix Weingartner was a Dalmatian conductor and composer renowned for his strong intellect and absolute command over the orchestras he led. As one of Franz Liszt’s last pupils at Weimar, he considered himself primarily a composer, heard his own operas produced, and featured his own compositions in concerts he conducted. After leading central European opera companies in Weimar, Königsberg, and Danzig, Weingartner succeeded Gustav Mahler as the Director of the Vienna Hofoper (1907-1910). He led the Vienna Philharmonic from 1908-1927 and was the first to devote an entire concert to the music of Johann Strauss, Jr. (for the composer’s centennial on 25 October 1925). He was the first to conduct commercial recordings of all of Beethoven’s symphonies.

Weingartner was interested in poetry, Eastern mysticism, and the occult. He wrote copiously on musical topics and edited many works by Berlioz, Wagner, and Gluck. He decried “tempo rubato conductors” (like Mahler!), preferring a cleaner, more historically sensitive approach to pre-Romantic music. He was careful to add detailed expressive markings in his seven symphonies, symphonic poems (King Lear), chamber music, and Lieder. Due to these efforts, he was considered a reformer – and a reactionary – who excelled in Schubertian melody but supported his themes with a combination of late romantic and early modern harmonies; his music is contemporaneous with that of Richard Strauss, Franz Schreker, and Alexander Zemlinsky. The precocious Viennese (soon to be American) composer Erich Wolfgang von Korngold dedicated his early Sinfonietta to Wiengartner, who conducted its premiere. …

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