Hartmann - Miserae

From the luminosity of Toch's Fourth Symphony back to the doom-laden atmosphere of Hartmann's Miserae (1934). It was the composer's first symphonic work: a single movement, 14 minute long symphonic fantasia that was listed as his Symphony nr. 1 until 1950. There are very few recordings available. Apart from the Metzmacher recording I have listened to, there is a Telarc recording conducted by Leon Botstein, and that's it (here is a very complete and up to date Hartmann discography as part of a larger project on documenting 'entartete musik' in fascist Germany and Italy; an amazing job).

It's an intriguing work, as often with this composer it seems. Formally one struggles to get a grip, as I did in the case of the Fourth Symphony. Despite its modest duration, it's a sprawling musical edifice. In language and form it reminds me of the Shostakovich of the 1930s and the latter's almost exactly contemporaneous Fourth is a good reference point. Both pieces display a highly fragmented, violently expressionistic musical process, a mix of bathos and dark forebodings.

The piece starts with a short, quiet prelude - scored for a small chamber-like ensemble - that features a very gripping section. It's basically a casual, almost jaunty march theme which transforms into a chilling death chamber with a muted trumpet and exhausted brass figures hovering over a pppp single note in the very low strings. An amazing effect which does not return later in the work but which casts a long, dark shadow behind anyway. The extended middle section is a maelstrom of vulgar marches and coarse jokes. One can almost see fat Nazi bellies groping under waitresses' skirts at a Munich biergarten. There is a kind of a drinking song - full of malicious, adolescent braggadocio - that returns a couple of times, fortissimo, as a motto theme. The party gives way to a pensive lament on the bassoon with klezmer overtones. But soon it's bulldozered by the mischievous party-goers and, after another attempt of the bassoon to assert itself, the work ends with a short, ferocious coda.

It's certainly a compelling work. It sounds undisciplined to me, but it testifies of a fascinating musical imagination nevertheless.

Very problematic is the whole political framing of not only this work but of Hartmann's oeuvre as a whole. This is another, extra-musical, parallel with Shostakovich. Can we only make sense of this as 'Bekenntnismusik'? Hartmann himself supported this way of approaching his music. However, we quickly get into an ugly ideological debate. Alex Ross, in his 'All the Rest is Noise', casts doubt on the sincerity of Hartmann's intentions. The dedication of Miserae to "my friends, who had to die a hundred times over, who sleep for all eternity" allegedely was only known to the conductor of the premiere, Hermann Scherchen, not to the wider public. And apparently Hartmann had not been averse to giving the Nazi salute during the war. It's an endless back and forth between sceptics and supporters that cannot be resolved and arguably has nothing to do with the music itself. Today I can only approach the music at face value. What I hear is a musical process that keeps me highly involved. Let's keep it at that, for the time being .