June 8, 2015

  • A New World Suite From an Unexpected Source

    Waghalter: Orchestral Music
    New Russian State Symphony Orchestra/Alexander Walker
    Naxos 8.573338
    Total Time:  53:36
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

     

    The present release is the second from Naxos presenting music by Ignatz Waghalter (1881-1949).  Though somewhat forgotten today, Waghalter was an important figure in American Music, though born in Poland, however you will be hard pressed to find much reference of him in most general musical surveys.  Prior to some of the music on this release, it is worth noting that the composer was most well known as a conductor in the second decade of the 20th Century.

    Though other Polish-Jewish musicians from more affluent families were impressing the world (Artur Rubinstein, Bronislaw Huberman), Waghalter came from the more impoverished class from a family of musicians.  He would even begin playing to help support the family from the age of 6!  With growing Anti-Semitism Warsaw, he would undergo a great deal of discrimination, and at 17 crossed into Germany, illegally.  It was there that Joachim discovered him and helped him get into the Akademie die Kunst.  An early string quartet would be published by Simrock and soon the young man embarked on his conducting career.  He is noted for being the first conductor of the new Berlin opera house that opened in 1912.  Though there were many death threats upon this appointment, he managed to gain great acclaim with the first production, Beethoven’s Fidelio—no doubt an ironic choice with its symbols of liberation and freedom.  He soon followed this with the German premiere of Puccini’s La fanciula del West—resulting in some 70 curtain calls for both composer and conductor.

    From these experiences, he would turn to composing his own opera in 1913 which was premiered the following January.  Mandragola is based on Machiavelli’s comedy and is a classic comedy of an old man with a young wife being “duped” by a younger man with designs on the woman.   He would write several other operas, each receiving some critical acclaim.  In 1923 though, the opera was forced into bankruptcy after a market crash and with new administration and conflict, Waghalter decided it was time to leave.

    The CD opens with two orchestral excerpts from this first opera.  The first is the delightful “Overture” with a its bubbly undercurrent and light-hearted style that is in keeping with operetta styles.  The music is a perfect example of romantic-tinged musical style of the period but is most notable for the wit and orchestral color of the music.  The melodies are equally strong and the music is a great blend of current styles (though admittedly some of the harmonic shifts are similar to Korngold’s later film work).  The “Intermezzo” has a nice pastoral quality with a nice thematic presentation in winds.

    We pick up the composer’s story in New York where he had come to take over conducting duties with the New York State Symphony (which later merged with the Philharmonic).  He stayed a year and then returned to Berlin where he worked at a film studio, went to Moscow for a few months with the Bolshoy Opera, and eventually landed in Riga for a few years.  He would move back to Berlin in 1933, a fairly inauspicious time as Hitler came to power soon after this.  Waghalter would then head to Czechoslavakia which led to the composition of the closing work on the CD, Masaryk’s Peace March.  This piece is a more light-hearted orchestral work mixing late-19th Century style and perfectly at home within the works of Fucik, Herbert, the Strauss family, or even Sousa.  Most interesting is the way the harmony moves about to interesting areas along the way, though it feels a bit overlong.

    Eventually, he emigrated to the US and here is where we find that interesting important side bar.  As a person coming out of a family of poverty and rising to such prominence, as well as having experienced discrimination throughout his life, Waghalter found himself identifying with the plight of African Americans.  At the time, African Americans were not able to play in symphony orchestras.  The conductor determined to solve this issue by creating what would be called the American Negro Orchestra.  He was given further support by the likes of James Weldon Johnson and Walter White, the leader of the NAACP.  Some of the greatest African American artists of the period would serve on the board: Marian Anderson, Duke Ellington, Roland Hayes, and Paul Robeson.  It might be a stretch, but conductor Alexander Walker’s notes here suggest that Gershwin’s mounting of Porgy and Bess may have provided additional germs of support for Waghalter’s idea of this ensemble.

    Most likely it was for this ensemble that the composer envisioned his New World Suite.  The ten movement work, composed in 1939, is a rather wonderful overview of American musical life of the period.  The opening “Intrada” has a sort of balletic feel with touches of modernism lending it the feel of the silent film hall.  This is especially true in the “Intermezzo”.  In many respects one gets a sense we have here a work of Broadway’s developing musical style, though couched more in classic romanticism.  The “Hymn and Variations” provide a more lyrical dramatic moment with a beautiful melody that is designed well to show off different orchestral soloists.  The jazzier rhythmic inflections spread throughout the work are nice touches throughout the work.  In some respects it is reminiscent of Victor Herbert, a sort of miniature work easily at home with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra though with more concert hall sensibility.  The melodic ideas are mostly engaging, but it is the fun orchestration that makes the music more inviting.  The result is a work that could be a nice addition to pops concerts, and might be worth trying to add to some period film imagery for extra color as it should work quite well in this way.   Unfortunately, the piece would lay unperformed as the orchestra appears to have disbanded about the time of its completion.  This version is a reconstruction by conductor Walker for this performance.

    The music here really shows off the soloists of the orchestra and the players here seem to manage to get a sense of the musical style.  No doubt thinking along film music lines would help.  The suite feels more a reflection of the 1920s with many touches of melodramatic romanticism and flashes of jazz; though less than say in John Alden Carpenter’s modernist pieces of the period.  Overall, the release is a rather delightful collection of music introducing this composer’s music and making one want to further explore his other work.  The New World Suite is in and of itself a rather unique curiosity that warrants picking up the disc.  The only real issue is that the playing time overall is a bit meager.