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Othmar Schoeck's Nachhall (Echo) in North American Premiere by the American Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center

May. 01, 2006

Othmar SchoeckOn May 21, 2006 at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in New York, Leon Botstein leads the American Symphony Orchestra in a program featuring the North American premiere of Othmar Schoeck's song cycle Nachhall (echo). The ASO's "Swiss Accounts" program also features Frank Martin's Concerto for Violoncello with soloist Christian Poltera and two works of Arthur Honegger. Nachhall, Schoeck's last major achievement, is set to texts by Matthias Claudius and Nikolaus Lenau and was composed between October 1954 and February 1955. It was first performed at the Tonhalle Zürich on December 6, 1955 with the alto Elsa Cavelti and marks a culmination in the creative output of Schoeck who lived from 1886 until 1957. As Michael Baumgartner points our in his program notes, "With Nachhall, Schoeck once again focused his efforts on the genre in which he had written a major part of his compositions, the German Lied. From his earliest youth until his final years Schoeck wrote more than 400 Lieder, most of them for voice and piano." Eleven of the twelve poems set by Schoeck in Nachhall trace a theme of the faithlessness of friends and carry an overall feeling of introspection and gloom that had taken hold of the composer in his later years. The twelfth poem "O du Land," however, alters the mood dramatically and Schoeck completes his song cycle with music of great consolation and hope.

About the work, American Symphony Orchestra Music Director Leon Botstein offered:

Because of the diverse and peculiar character of Swiss politics, and the centrality of Switzerland as a temporary home for distinguished transients (including Igor Stravinsky, Georg Solti, and Herman Scherchen), a foray into Swiss musical life in the mid-twentieth century is an intriguing task. Othmar Schoeck was perhaps the most original composition talent of the twentieth century from German Switzerland. His reputation outside of Switzerland has been compromised not by the quality of his music—he wrote nearly three hundred songs of startling beauty and the American Symphony Orchestra has performed his early Violin Concerto. But he was indisputably a Nazi sympathizer, much like his contemporary Volkmar Andreae, the distinguished conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra. Schoeck was a classic example of the cultivated, civilized, German-centered Swiss, whose “neutrality” did not prevent the deformation of ethical judgment.

For more information about the ASO, and to purchase tickets for this concert, please visit www.americansymphony.org. For more information about Othmar Schoeck please visit www.universaledition.com.

FURTHER LISTENING: Othmar Schoeck's Das stille Leuchten, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Hartmut Holl, is available for purchase throughout the country and can also be found at www.amazon.com

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