Felix Draeseke - Fata Morgana

Wolfgang Müller Steinbach - Piano Fata Morgana Op. 13 00:00 Book of displeasure 01:04 Tender Mediation 02:53 Sweet melancholy 05:22 A masculine word At the end of 1877, therefore during the first full year in his new home of Dresden, Draeseke completed his collection of piano pieces titled Fata Morgana. He called this collection of nine pieces a Ghaselenkranz, or Wreath of Ghasels, thereby reflecting the continuing 19th century German fascination with the Persian poetic form Ghasel, which since the appearance of Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan at the beginning of the century had become a beloved expression of form. A Ghasel (or Ghazal) can be defined as “an oriental poetic form of between 6 and 30 quatrains in which the first rhyme scheme is taken up in all succeeding verses: aa, ba, ca, da..“ ©Alan Krueck 2003 Felix Draeseke (1835-1913) was a German composer. He was attracted to music early in life and wrote his first composition at age 8. He encountered no opposition from his family when, in his mid-teens, he declared his intention of becoming a professional musician. A few years at the Leipzig conservatory did not seem to benefit his development, but after one of the early performances of Wagner’s Lohengrin he was won to the camp of the New German School centered on Franz Liszt at Weimar, where he stayed from 1856 (arriving just after Joachim Raff’s departure) to 1861. During his career Draeseke divided his efforts almost equally among compositional genres and composed in most of them, including symphonies, concertos, opera, chamber music, and works for solo piano. With his early Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor Sonata quasi Fantasia of 1862–1867 he aroused major interest, winning Liszt’s unreserved admiration of it as one of the most important piano sonatas after Beethoven. According to some, Draeseke’s Symphonia Tragica (Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 40) deserves a place alongside the symphonies of Brahms and Bruckner. His compositions were performed frequently in Germany by the leading artists of the day, including Hans von Bülow, Arthur Nikisch, Fritz Reiner, and Karl Böhm. However, as von Bülow once remarked to him, he was a “harte Nuß“ (“a hard nut to crack“) and despite the quality of his works, he would “never be popular among the ordinary“. Draeseke could be sharply critical and this sometimes led to strained relations, the most notorious instance being with Richard Strauss, when Draeseke attacked Strauss’s Salome in his 1905 pamphlet Die Konfusion in der Musik — rather surprising, as Draeseke was a clear influence on the young Strauss. Draeseke’s music was promoted during the Third Reich. After the Second World War, changes in fashion and political climates allowed his name and music to slip into obscurity. But as the 20th century ended, new recordings spurred a renewed interest in his music. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please support this channel