Artur Schnabel
(geb. Lipnik bei Bielitz (Bielsko), Österreich (heute Polen), 17. April 1882 - gest. Axenstein, Schweiz, 15. August 1951)

Rhapsody for Orchestra (1946)

Vorwort
Zeit seines Lebens hat Artur Schnabel darunter gelitten, daß er im allgemeinen Bewußtsein der Musikwelt als Komponist keinen Platz fand. Gleichzeitig war ihm aber seine künstlerische Unabhängigkeit zu wichtig - und das nicht nur als Komponist, sondern auch als Interpret -, als daß er sich um die Gunst des Publikums bemüht hätte. Seine Verpflichtungen als Pianist und Lehrer erlaubten es ihm nur während der Sommermonate, die er über viele Jahre in den Bergen verbrachte, sich ausgiebig Zeit zum Komponieren zu nehmen. So entstand das Particell der Rhapsody for Orchestra innerhalb von vier Wochen im Juli 1946 bei einem Aufenthalt in Sils Maria in den Schweizer Alpen. Im Oktober und November orchestrierte Schnabel die Partitur in New York, wo er seit seiner Emigration aus Europa im Jahr 1939 lebte.
Hatte Schnabel in seiner Jugend vor allem Lieder und Klavierwerke geschaffen, in seiner Lebensmitte Kammermusik insbesondere für Streicher, so wandte er sich seit dem Ende der 1930er Jahre vermehrt der Komposition von Werken für große Besetzungen zu. 1938/39 entstand die Erste Symphonie, zwischen 1941 und 1943 die Zweite, und in den folgenden beiden Jahren die Two Movements for Chorus and Orchestra. Die Rhapsody, seine vorletzte umfangreiche Komposition, "stellt den Versuch dar, die Bestandteile und wesentlichen Merkmale einer ausgewachsenen Symphonie in ein sehr viel kürzeres Stück zu integrieren”, wie Schnabel es in einer handschriftlichen, undatierten Notiz aus dem Nachlaß formulierte. Er fährt fort: "Von dem eröffnenden Motiv (siehe Partitur) stammen tatsächlich alle folgenden musikalischen Ideen ab. Der Charakter und die Atmosphäre des Werkes sollten natürlich, wie es der Titel sagt, rhapsodisch sein, das heißt unabhängig, launenhaft, leidenschaftlich, phantastisch, eine Huldigung an Freiheit und Klarheit.” Im Programmtext zur Uraufführung betont er den absoluten Charakter seiner Musik: "Mit der Rhapsody habe ich versucht, was ich bisher in jedem meiner Werke angestrebt habe - aus der rein musikalischen Vorstellung heraus, ohne jegliche außermusikalische Assoziation, ein lebendiges Wesen zu schaffen, ein Individuum mit voneinander abhängigen Organen, entwickelnd, kontrastierend, widersprechend, verschmelzend, doch immer eine Einheit bildend. Es gibt keine Vorschriften für den Hörer, was er zu hören und zu fühlen (und zu sehen) habe. Keines meiner Werke ist programmatisch. Musik ist Ausdruck menschlicher Erfahrungen. Die begabtesten und die unbegabtesten Komponisten unterscheiden sich selbstverständlich in der Intensität und Art ihrer Erfahrungen. Ihnen allen gemeinsam ist eine Einschränkung: Musik kann nicht konkret gemacht werden.”
Das einsätzige Werk dauert eine knappe Viertelstunde. Es wurde am 15. April 1948 vom Cleveland Orchestra unter der Leitung von George Szell in Cleveland uraufgeführt. Schnabel war bei den Proben anwesend und schrieb mit Blick auf die relativ knappe Probenzeit an seine Frau Therese Behr: "... und auf zur Probe. Erst ein Drittel der Rhapsody. Klingt wie beabsichtigt. Aufführung einstweilen in solchem Rohzustand, dass Gestalt und Ausdruck noch nicht wahrnehmbar sind. Die Spieler sehen nur ihre eigenen Stimmen; sie haben daher kaum Gelegenheit, das Werk kennen zu lernen. Die Nachbargruppe tut immer was anderes. Das ist verwirrend, und der beste Ausweg scheint, dass alle gleichzeitig und mit voller Klangstärke arbeiten. Die Musik ist unendlich differenziert, und ob sie Zeit haben werden, die unerlässliche Verfeinerung und den Zusammenhang zu erreichen, ist fraglich.” Ein halbes Jahr später, im November 1948, leitete Dimitri Mitropoulos, der zwei Jahre zuvor schon Schnabels Erste Symphonie aus der Taufe gehoben hatte, eine Aufführung mit dem New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in der Carnegie Hall. Dieses Konzert wurde zu einem der größten Erfolge in Schnabels Karriere als Komponist. Am 27. April 1950 fand in London die Europäische Erstaufführung der Rhapsody in einem Konzert des Philharmonia Orchestra unter der Leitung von Paul Kletzki, der das Werk einige Tage später bei der Columbia Gramophone Company auf Schallplatte aufnahm. Columbia brachte diese Aufnahme allerdings erst 1952, ein halbes Jahr nach Schnabels Tod, heraus.
© Anouk Jeschke, 2002

Aufführungsmaterial ist erhältlich von der Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Archivabteilung Musik.

Nachdruck eines Exemplars aus dem Archiv der Akademie der Künste, Berlin,
mit der freundlichen Genehmigung der Erbengemeinschaft Artur Schnabe

Artur Schnabel
(*Lipnik near Bielsko (Bielitz), Austria (today Poland), 17 April 1882 - Axenstein, Switzerland, 15 August 1951)

Rhapsody for Orchestra (1946)

Foreword
During his lifetime Artur Schnabel bewailed the fact that he had found no place as a composer in the collective consciousness of the music world. Nevertheless, his artistic independence (as an interpreter as well as a composer) was more important to him than trying to find favour with the public. His duties as a pianist and teacher only allowed him prolonged stretches of time for composing during the summer months, which for many years he spent in the mountains. It was in this way that the short score of the Rhapsody for Orchestra emerged in less than four weeks in July 1946 during a stay at Sils Maria in the Swiss Alps. In October and November of that year Schnabel orchestrated the score in New York, where he had lived since his emigration from Europe in 1939.
In his youth Schnabel had devoted himself primarily to composing songs and piano works; in his middle age it was chamber music, particularly for strings; and so from the end of the 1930‘s he applied himself to the composition of works with more ambitious instrumentation. In 1938/-39 came the First Symphony, between 1941 and 1943 the Second, and in the following two years the Two Movements for Chorus and Orchestra. The Rhapsody, his penultimate substantial composition, "represents an attempt to handle the problem of using the ingredients and essential traits of a fullfledged symphony in a piece much shorter than the customary symphony", as Schnabel put it in a hand-written, undated note from the papers of his estate. He continues: "From the line that opens the work (see music) spring actually all the following musical ideas. The work’s character and atmosphere meant naturally to be, what the title says, namely rhapsodic, i.e. independent, capricious, passionate, phantastic, a tribute to freedom and coherence." In the programme text of the premiere performance he underlined the definitive character of his music: "With the Rhapsody, I tried again what I had tried before with each of the pieces I have written - to produce out of purely musical imagination, without any extra-musical associations, a lively being, an individual with inter-dependent organs, developing, contrasting, conflicting, blending, yet always remaining coherent. There are no prescriptions to the listener about what to hear and what to feel (and what to see). None is program- or story-bound. Music is an expression of human experience. The most gifted as well as the least gifted composers differ, naturally in the power and direction of their experiences. Common to all is the one limitation: Music cannot be made concrete.”
This single-movement work lasts barely a quarter of an hour. It was first performed in Cleveland by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of George Szell on 15 April, 1948. Schnabel was present at the rehearsals and wrote to his wife, Therese Behr, concerning the relatively short rehearsal time: "... and off to the rehearsal. Only a third of the Rhapsody. Sounds as intended. For the time being the performance is in such a raw state that the shape and effect are still not discernible. The performers see only their own parts; thus they hardly have an opportunity to get to know the work. The adjacent section always does something different. That‘s confusing, and the only solution appears to be that everyone works at the same time at full blast. The music is infinitely complex, and it‘s questionable whether they‘ll have time to reach the necessary refinement and cohesion." Some six months later in November 1948 there was a performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; it was conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, who two years previously had already baptised Schnabel‘s First Symphony. This concert became one of the greatest successes of Schnabel‘s career as a composer. On 27 April, 1950, the first European performance of the Rhapsody took place in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the direction of Paul Kletzki, who recorded the work on vinyl with the Columbia Gramophone Company a few days later. Columbia first issued this recording in 1952, six months after Schnabel’s death.
Translation: Hereward Tilton
Performance materials please contact the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Archivabteilung Musik.

Reprint of a copy from the archive of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin,
with kind permission of the estate of Artur Schnabel

Artur Schnabel
(*Lipnik near Bielsko (Bielitz), Austria (today Poland), 17 April 1882 - Axenstein, Switzerland, 15 August 1951)

Rhapsody for Orchestra (1946)

Foreword
During his lifetime Artur Schnabel bewailed the fact that he had found no place as a composer in the collective consciousness of the music world. Nevertheless, his artistic independence (as an interpreter as well as a composer) was more important to him than trying to find favour with the public. His duties as a pianist and teacher only allowed him prolonged stretches of time for composing during the summer months, which for many years he spent in the mountains. It was in this way that the short score of the Rhapsody for Orchestra emerged in less than four weeks in July 1946 during a stay at Sils Maria in the Swiss Alps. In October and November of that year Schnabel orchestrated the score in New York, where he had lived since his emigration from Europe in 1939.
In his youth Schnabel had devoted himself primarily to composing songs and piano works; in his middle age it was chamber music, particularly for strings; and so from the end of the 1930‘s he applied himself to the composition of works with more ambitious instrumentation. In 1938/-39 came the First Symphony, between 1941 and 1943 the Second, and in the following two years the Two Movements for Chorus and Orchestra. The Rhapsody, his penultimate substantial composition, "represents an attempt to handle the problem of using the ingredients and essential traits of a fullfledged symphony in a piece much shorter than the customary symphony", as Schnabel put it in a hand-written, undated note from the papers of his estate. He continues: "From the line that opens the work (see music) spring actually all the following musical ideas. The work’s character and atmosphere meant naturally to be, what the title says, namely rhapsodic, i.e. independent, capricious, passionate, phantastic, a tribute to freedom and coherence." In the programme text of the premiere performance he underlined the definitive character of his music: "With the Rhapsody, I tried again what I had tried before with each of the pieces I have written - to produce out of purely musical imagination, without any extra-musical associations, a lively being, an individual with inter-dependent organs, developing, contrasting, conflicting, blending, yet always remaining coherent. There are no prescriptions to the listener about what to hear and what to feel (and what to see). None is program- or story-bound. Music is an expression of human experience. The most gifted as well as the least gifted composers differ, naturally in the power and direction of their experiences. Common to all is the one limitation: Music cannot be made concrete.”
This single-movement work lasts barely a quarter of an hour. It was first performed in Cleveland by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of George Szell on 15 April, 1948. Schnabel was present at the rehearsals and wrote to his wife, Therese Behr, concerning the relatively short rehearsal time: "... and off to the rehearsal. Only a third of the Rhapsody. Sounds as intended. For the time being the performance is in such a raw state that the shape and effect are still not discernible. The performers see only their own parts; thus they hardly have an opportunity to get to know the work. The adjacent section always does something different. That‘s confusing, and the only solution appears to be that everyone works at the same time at full blast. The music is infinitely complex, and it‘s questionable whether they‘ll have time to reach the necessary refinement and cohesion." Some six months later in November 1948 there was a performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; it was conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, who two years previously had already baptised Schnabel‘s First Symphony. This concert became one of the greatest successes of Schnabel‘s career as a composer. On 27 April, 1950, the first European performance of the Rhapsody took place in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the direction of Paul Kletzki, who recorded the work on vinyl with the Columbia Gramophone Company a few days later. Columbia first issued this recording in 1952, six months after Schnabel’s death.
Translation: Hereward Tilton

Performance materials please contact the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Archivabteilung Musik.

Reprint of a copy from the archive of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin,
with kind permission of the estate of Artur Schnabe