Emil von Reznicek

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Emil Nikolaus [Freiherr] von Reznicek (May 4, 1860 in Vienna, died August 2, 1945 in Berlin) was an Austrian late Romantic composer of Czech ancestry. He is remembered today mainly for the overture to his opera Donna Diana, composed in 1894. The overture is a popular stand-alone piece at symphony concerts and also served as the theme for the radio (1947-1955) series Challenge of the Yukon, which later migrated to the TV series (1955-1958) Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.

Reznicek studied law and music simultaneously in Graz. He didn't finish his law degree, but continued to study music. After that, he conducted at the theater in Graz, in Berlin and a few other places. From 1886 to 1894 he was Kapellmeister of the 88th Infantry of Prague, and it was here that he saw his greatest triumph with the premiere of Donna Diana (December 16, 1894). At the beginning of the 20th century he settled in Berlin, touring to Russia and England from time to time. When the Nazi party came to power, Reznicek tried not to become involved, but stayed in Berlin.

Reznicek was a personal friend of Richard Strauss. However, the relation between the two seems to have been an ambivalent one. Reznicek's symphonic poem Schlemihl (1912) can be seen as a direct parody of Strauss' Ein Heldenleben. The use of (often sarcastic) humor is a feature of much of Reznicek's music, from the jibbering Blaubart in the opera Ritter Blaubart via the sardonic Dance around the Golden Calf from Der Sieger (1913) to the expressionist Tarantella last movement of his Dance Symphony (#5, 1925).

Reznicek's works include orchestral works (five symphonies, suites, serenades, overtures), a violin concerto (1922), operas (Till Eulenspiegel (1902), Ritter Blaubart - A Fairy-Tale Opera in Three Acts (composed 1915-1917 and recorded by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2002), Spiel oder Ernst (1930)), chamber music (the first of his four string quartets (composed in 1921) received its world premiere recording from the Franz Schubert Quartet of Vienna in 1996).

The German label CPO have started a project to record all of Reznicek's orchestral output. In this series, the symphonic poems Der Sieger (1913) and Schemihl (1912), along with a number of symphonies (#2 "Ironische" and #5 "Tanzsinfonie") and the overture Raskolnikoff (1931) have already been released (November, 2006).