Volume 21 - Horns of the Vienna State Opera
Logo by Martha
The rich tradition of choral singing has a pivotal touchstone in 1808 when composer and conductor Carl Friedrich Zelter formed the Singakadamie in Berlin. This group was limited to twenty-five singers who performed four voice part songs and sought out new choral repertoire. Soon thereafter, Romantic era composers including Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms all composed interesting and evocative choral and vocal music that included horns. For this month’s volume, we will listen to “Forest and Hunting Songs of the Romatic Era” performed by the Men’s Chorus and the Horns of the Vienna State Opera released by Musical Heritage Society in 1960.
The horn performers on this recording include Roland Berger, Solo-horn of the Vienna State Opera (coincidentally this recording dates from his first year in that position at age 23), Friedrich Gabler, Solo-horn of the Vienna Volksopera and professor at the State Academy, and Roland Barr, Günter Högner, and Hans Fischer who played first, third, and fourth horns respectively in the State Opera. It is worth noting that the traditional membership of the Vienna Philharmonic is based foremost in performance with the State Opera. After successfully auditioning into the Opera and a three-year probationary period, members are then eligible to perform with the Vienna Philharmonic. Berger, Gabler, and Fischer were also students of Gottfried von Frieburg, the former Solo-horn of the Vienna Philharmonic.
Though this album has many selections that include horns, our listening will be centered on two marvelous choral works by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann that deserve our attention and interest as performers.
Franz Schubert’s Nachtgesang im Walde (Nightsong in the Forest), D 913 for four horns and men’s chorus was premiered on April 22, 1897 for a benefit concert for famed hornist Josef Rudolf Lewy - his brother, Eduard, performed alongside too. The following year on March 26, 1828, Schubert held a concert commorating the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death.
Once again the Lewy brothers performed Nachtgesang im Walde, and Josef also premiered Auf dem Strom D 943 for Tenor, Horn, and Piano composed in honor of Beethoven.
Using text by German poet Johann Gabriel Siedle, Nachtgesang im Walde conjours an evocative soundscape of a silvan woodland night that becomes alive with the encroaching dawn. The pieces opening uses the horns’ sound to both reinforce the chorus and to provide a gentle echoing effect, set to text descriptive of clandestine forest greetings, echoing steps, and silvery moon beams:
The mood then shifts as the poem indicates the awaken of dawn with the rousing sound of horns. A gallop ensues with descriptions of birds, deer, and swaying treetops punctuated by the choir’s articulation and the driving rhythm in the horns:
Robert Schumann is also well-known to hornists for his Adagio & Allegro, Op. 70 and the Konzertstück, Op. 86, both composed in his very productive compositional year of 1849. Less well-known are his Jagdlieder, Op. 137, a set of five songs for men’s chorus and horn quartet from May of the same year. The score calls for three Waldhörner, with the 4th horn part designated as Ventilhorn. Schumann was pioneering in his use of valved horn, but likely chose the designation and assigned keys of F, E, and D for a more rustic horn sound fitting the text of these hunting songs. It also would have been necessary for the Waldhorn players to use ample hand technique as Schumann’s noted chromaticism frequently utilizes pitches outside of the harmonic series.
Schumann chose to adapt poems from Heinrich Laube’s Jagdbrevier (Hunting Anthology), a collection of poems celebrating the permission to hunt for the German middle-class – a luxury permitted previously only to the nobility.
The first song Zur hohen Jagd (On the High Hunt) begins with a rousing hunting melody for the horns, who in turn provide rhythmic and tonal support for the choral melody. The song text is descriptive of the joys of hunting, and the gifts of the forests and land, as well as the sun, rain, and wind. The rollicking compound meter and thick articulation style of the Vienna horn adds terrific heft to the voices:
The fourth songs, Frühe (Early) is quite contrasting, marked Langsam and moving to the key of D minor. The horn parts are more intertwined and less homophonic, just as the voices parts have increased independent motion. Schumann bends the harmonies to create palpable tension, allowing the horns to sound a brief concluding chorale accentuated with a soaring high C#:
The final song in the set, Bei der Flasche (With the Bottle) is a celebration of the German hunting tradition, ending with the text “for the hunt is in our blood!” The horns again provide support for the voices, only breaking away to punctuate the piece with a final flourish:
The horns of the Vienna State Opera play throughout with a lyrical and legato quality, allowing their sound to surge forward with burnished excitement, exuding all the best characteristics of our historic hunting horn! Thank you as always for reading Horn on Record!