Erwin Schulhoff's Fünf Stücke (Five Pieces) for String Quartet, arranged for orchestra by Manfred Honeck and Tomáš Ille, performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Manfred Honeck and recorded live on 16 December 2023 at the Kölner Philharmonie.
Erwin Schulhoff / Manfred Honeck & Tomáš Ille (Arr.) - Five pieces for string quartet arranged for orchestra
00:00:00 I. Alla valse viennese
00:02:05 II. Alla serenata
00:06:02 III. alla czenca
00:07:46 IV. Alla tango milonga
00:12:45 V. Alla tarantella
WDR Symphony Orchestra
Manfred Honeck, conductor
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Introduction to the work:
In times of serious conflict, this concert could set an example with a tentative outreach. The Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff, born in Prague in 1894, became a victim of the National Socialists, to whom Franz Schmidt in turn paid homage at the end of his life. An irresolvable conflict - and yet Manfred Honeck has decided to include works by these two composers on today's concert programme. As a musical impulse that thematises reconciliation.
Schulhoff was one of the most versatile composers of his generation. Praised as a 7-year-old by Antonín Dvořák and trained by Max Reger, among others, Schulhoff was convinced that music should "primarily create physical well-being, even ecstasy, through rhythm; it is never philosophy". This basic attitude made the composer open to a wide variety of influences, so that he utilised many genres, styles and techniques. Fascinated by Dadaism, he turned to this art movement for a while. Later, twelve-tone technique was added - and above all jazz. For his contemporaries, Schulhoff's music was difficult to categorise, he fused so many influences into his own cosmos of sound. One music journalist wrote in the 1920s: "Schulhoff is the contemporary. Perhaps the fashionable musician of today. An amusing, amiable, witty, playful, highly gifted artist. And a wild temperamental musician, a go-getter." Schulhoff confirmed this in a letter to his fellow composer Alban Berg: "I have an extraordinary passion for fashionable dances, and there are times when I go dancing night after night simply out of enthusiasm for the rhythm and out of subconscious sensuality ... this gives my creative work a phenomenal impulse".
The Five Movements for String Quartet are an example of his conception of art. With the première in 1924 at the festival of the International Society for New Music, Schulhoff presented himself in the circle of the musical avant-garde of the time. The orchestral arrangement by Manfred Honeck and Tomáš Ille underlines the great colourfulness of these miniatures inspired by dance music.
Text: Otto Hagedorn