Looking for famous ‘lost arks of music’
The main concern of humanity is the future – how it will be, how to develop in macro and micro scales and/ or also how to survive. However if we see the past, looking for its secrets although unknown; it may probably the next in line.
Over the past few years it has become a trend among amateurs to look for hidden treasures. What I am writing about are just my reflections about an old trend among the peoples since the beginning of humanity to hide everything that is valuable.
Maybe it was just a technique which was developing, especially based on scientific or may be even military secrets to hide from their adversaries since detectors in the air (even cosmic) photos or x-rays offered a chance in different ways even for amateurs. There are different motivations: interest and curiosity (which killed the cat) dreaming and last but not the least – just greed.
Of course I talked about the amateurs, but the professionals are the other strong group of searchers in many fields such as archaeologists, palaeontologists, archivists and the list can be really long. Sometimes both groups are blaming each other and fighting among them, more seldom – cooperates. However, we know much more because of this phenomenon in human nature and almost every day bring us some discoveries. That general rule also applies to music.
In 2012 in London ‘The Guardian’ newspaper informed its readers that development is described by music experts as ‘a bombshell in the world of Baroque opera’, a new version of Vivaldi’s opera ‘Orlando Furioso’ was discovered, 270 years after his death.’ The manuscript with 20 ‘new’ arias was dated back to 1714, around the time that Red Priest was also working on The Four Seasons. ‘It’s a gift from heavens’ commented Susan Orlando, a Vivaldi expert.
Homage
At last the Decca Records released the disc of Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly, first in the history, a record of the youth compositions of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Chant Funebre (The Funeral Song) Op. 5 on symphonic orchestra.
The 26-year-old composer wrote it in 1908 to pay homage to his Professor, the Great Russian composer Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov (1844-1908), who had just died. In January 1909 the work was performed for the public dedicated to the Master and since then there has been news of it.
After two World Wars and the Bolshevik Revolution, Stravinsky emigrated to the West and the Communist Russia found him in a traitor. He was able to visit his native country in the 1960s after Khrushchev’s ‘thaw’.
Some Russian musicologists still believe that the score will be somewhere, but not listed in the catalogues collection of Tchaikovsky Conservatory. At the beginning of 2015 the old building of the Conservatory complete renovation and all the equipment including the library collections were taken out.
While going through the decades-old works, one of the library employees, Irina Sidorenko found in one dusty box part of a flute of Chant Funebre. Step by step all 58 pieces were found. There was not a general score but the reconstruction of score became possible. The new premiere, it means second coming to existence was at The Mariinsky Theater in St Petersburg under the baton of famous Valery Georgiev. The incident was really a ‘life after life’.
He was one of the most famous conductors of the 20th century in both, Europe and the United States. Paul Kletzki (1900-1973) was born in the city of Łódz, in central Poland as Paweł Klecki. He joined the Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of fifteen.
Composition
After serving in the WW I, he studied philosophy at the Warsaw University but soon moved to Berlin where he continued his studies. He met the music legend, Arturo Toscanini who championed his composition and as a result, after meeting also the other famous conductor of the 1920s, German Wilhelm Furtwangler, he was permitted in 1925 to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic. Since his first success he became to be known only as a perfect ‘German’ conductor.
After Hitler came to power in 1933 Kletzki he first fled to Italy, then Russia and finally to Switzerland and was acclaimed as a leading symphonic conductor of his time. NB. His specialization was Austro-Bohemian late-Romantic Gustav Mahler’s (18601911) music. In the US he was the chief conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic and the Texan Dallas Symphony Orchestra and in Switzerland, the General Music Director of well-known the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
Nobody recognized him as a composer. Traumatized by Nazi atrocities (he lost his parents and sister) Kletzki stopped composing in 1942 and literally buried his music sheet in two boxes in the cellar of the hotel in Milan, Italy. It was found and sent to the composer in the 1960s, when the ground was dug under some reconstruction but composer couldn’t bring himself to open it until his death. Then his wife, Yvonne discovered that all the compositions remained intact inside.
Discovered
He then passed the compositions on to Timothy Jackson, musicologist of North Texas University. He was a man of the mission establishing project of ‘Lost Composers Project’. With cooperation of the team of his colleagues he discovered and brought to ‘second life’ in the history of music several composers and their works. Thanks to his work several of Kletzki compositions have meanwhile been recorded, even his Piano Concerto was nominated at last (but posthumously) to the Grammy Award.
In the same city Łódz there was born another musician who became known as ‘a famous French composer’. Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986). There he made his debut on the piano and soon on the stage. He studied and premiered his first compositions.
NB: He was a friend of Paul Kletzki. Together with the young Polish poet, Julian Tuwim they were known there as the Three Musketeers. With Paul he played also as a teenager at Philharmonic Orchestra. He studied under a very conservative composer Prof. Piotr Rytel. (I knew him personally when I was a child.) The teacher’s efforts brought excellent results but different from expectation – Alexandre became a modern composer.
The WW II whipped out Tansman from his town first in 1939 to Paris and later in 1941 to the United States. He was already a friend of Ravel, Bartok, Stravinsky, George Gershwin and – Charlie Chaplin. With Chaplin he maintained a friendship in famous club Coconut-Grove in Hollywood in the 1920s. In 1928 Tansman performed at Hollywood Bowl 18 thousand people listened to his Piano Concerto dedicated to Charlie Chaplin. In the US they proclaimed the piece as ‘a musical biography of Chaplin.’
Contracts
The great film star appeared to be also a great friend. He organized his friends to help Tansman to leave for the United States with his wife and two daughters. The contracts for the concerts were signed by such conductors as Leopold Stokowski or Serge Koussevitzky. That time it was not easy to enter the US. At the last moment of their escape from Europe Tansman failed to buy trunks. Then the composer packed all their belongings into the coffin and arrived at the New York Port with that coffin in front of welcoming reporters from The New York Times. Can you imagine the effect? NB. It was the last ship with immigrants from continental Europe conquered by the Nazis.
Tansman became an eminent person in the circle of the so-called ‘EuroCalifornian culture’. He settled in Hollywood and won Oscar nomination. Even before the war he toured the whole world: even Hawaii, Japan, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Java, Bali, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Singapore, India, Egypt, Balearic Islands… He was treated personally by Mahatma Gandhi and awarded by Emperor Hirohito of special medal.
However after the end of the WW II Alexandre came back to Europe and settled in Paris. He was banned in Poland as an emigrant and ‘enemy’ of the communist government.
During the war turmoil there were many losses. He lost several of his compositions in those sudden and unexpected escapes. One of them was the score of his ballet ‘Golden Fleece’. After many decades musicologist Andrew Wendland, a warm young follower of Tansman and his music found the copy at the bottom of the mountain of papers at the Paris National Library.
He devoted himself to the idea of his idol and he was called by colleagues Tansman’s Indiana Jones. After the Solidarity movement came to power Tansman was warmly welcomed in Poland. In Łódz there is the Tansman Festival and Museum, of course thanks to Wendland who also wrote the book ‘Around the World in Eighty Nine Years’.
The Lost Arks of Music has many interesting stories, written by Romantic Detectives!
Editor’s Note: Cezary Owerkowicz is the chairman of the Kuwait Chamber of Philharmonia and talented pianist. He regularly organises concerts by well-known musicians for the benefit of music lovers and to widen the knowledge of music in Kuwait. His e-mail address is: cowerkowicz @yahoo.com and cowerkowicz@hotmail.com