Ignatz Waghalter (1881–1949)
Naxos 8.573338
New Russia State Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Walker
Release date : 05-05-2015
Total Playing Time: 53:34
http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item...._code=8.573338
Mandragola, Op.18, comic opera (1914)
1.Overture 3:59
2.Intermezzo 3:18
New World Suite for Orchestra (1938-39)
3.I. Intrada 4:18
4.II. Intermezzo 1:02
5.III. Hymn and Variations 3:53
6.IV. Promenade 3:34
7.V. Idyll and Hornpipe 5:55
8.VI. Pastorale 3:10
9.VII. City Dance 2:54
10.VIII. Vaudeville 1:49
11.IX. Berceuse 4:36
12.X. Finale 4:44
13.Mazaryks Friedensmarsch (Masaryk's Peace March) (1936)
(reconstructed by A. Walker) 10:22
Ignatz Waghalter rose from an impoverished childhood in Poland to become conductor at the newly founded Deutsches Opernhaus in Berlin in 1912. Here, the first performance of his youthful comic opera Mandragola, attended by luminaries such as Richard Strauss, Busoni, and Humperdinck, won him huge acclaim: the Overture and Intermezzo reveal his orchestral mastery. With the rise of Nazism Waghalter left Europe for America where he strongly identified with the Afro-American cause, and began work on the New World Suite, ten short movements of rich melodic imagination that illustrate his constant desire to write approachable and lively music. Volume 1 in this series [8.572809] was an ICMA (International Classical Music Awards) nominee.
Almost three years ago, Alexander Walker visited me in Detroit to look through the boxes which contained what remained of my grandfather's musical legacy. Buried in the bottom of one of the boxes, in a large manila envelop, Alex discovered a 200-page orchestral manuscript, written in Waghalter's hand with ink and pencil. Coffee stains were visible on some of the pages. It was the orchestral work, composed for the American Negro Orchestra that he had founded, of which Waghalter had spoken in his interview with the Afro-American newspaper of Baltimore in a January 1939 interview. Alex slowly turned the pages of the score. "What do you make of this work?," I asked. "This is simply astonishing music, and it must be recorded," he replied. Alex meant what he said. He threw himself into the project, and turned the unproofed handwritten draft into a performable printed score. And so, six months later, the New World Suite was recorded in Moscow. The CD also contains the exuberant Overture and haunting Intermezzo composed by Waghalter for his 1914 comic opera, Mandragola. And finally, there is a rousing March that my grandfather composed in honor of President Thomas Masaryk of Czechoslovakia. It is my hope that the release of this CD will provide fresh inspiration for the efforts of those who have been engaged in the fight to rediscover and revive unjustly forgotten and neglected great composers of the 20th century.
David W. Green
Saturday 4th April 2015
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