Emil von Reznicek

Emil Nikolaus Freiherr von Reznicek (4 May 1860, Vienna – 2 August 1945 in Berlin) was an Austrian late Romantic composer of Czech ancestry.

Contents

Life

Reznicek studied law and music simultaneously in Graz. He didn't finish his law degree, but continued to study music. Subsequently, 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 (16 December 1894). In the spring of 1902 he settled in Berlin, touring to Russia and England from time to time. When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, 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 through the sardonic Dance around the Golden Calf from Der Sieger (1913) to the expressionist Tarantella last movement of his Dance Symphony (#5, 1925). This Eulenspiegelei (a reference to the literary prankster Till Eulenspiegel) frequently got him into trouble in a world that was unaccustomed to the use of humour in music and art.

Ferdinand von Rezniček was his half-brother.

Reputation

Today, Reznicek is remembered 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 American radio (1947–1955) series Challenge of the Yukon, which later migrated to the TV series (1955–1958) Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. It was also used in the 1950s on the BBC's Children's Hour by Stephen King-Hall for his talks on current affairs.

The German label CPO has started a project to record all of Reznicek's orchestral output. In this series, the symphonic poems Der Sieger (1913) and Schlemihl (1912), along with a number of symphonies (#2 "Ironische" and #5 "Tanzsinfonie") and the overture Raskolnikoff (1931) have already been released (November, 2006). Symphony #1 in D minor "Tragic", was released by CPO in 2008.

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).

Works

Symphonies

Orchestral and vocal works

Stage works

Chamber music

Piano

Organ

Selected discography

References

  1. ^ Christian Stürzl. "Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek – Werkverzeichnis – Kammermusik". www.vonreznicek.de. http://www.vonreznicek.de/index.php?article_id=28. Retrieved 7 May 2011. 
  2. ^ "Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek – Werkverzeichnis". www.reflex.at. https://reflex.at/~michael.reznicek/emil.html#wv. Retrieved 7 May 2011. 

External links