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Newly transfered and remastered by Mark Obert-Thorn
Producer’s Note: The present transfer of Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony was taken from mid-1930s American Victor "Red Seal Scroll" label shellacs in album M-1 03 made from "Z" pressing-like material, providing the most quiet surfaces on which this recording was issued. Two matrices (the third side of the first movement, and the one side which comprises the entire second movement) were only ever issued in sonically-compromised dubbings, and a change is sound quality is unavoidably noticeable here. The sources for the two Suppé overtures were late 1930s Victor pressings – a "Gold" label pressing for Pique Dame (Victor 11346) and a scarce late Black label pressing for Morning, Noon and Night in Viennal (Victor 36004). Neither the latter overture nor the Goldmark have ever been reissued on LP or CD before, and this release marks their first extended-play appearance. - Mark Obert-Thorn
Robert Heger Biographical notes from Wikipedia Robert Heger (19 August 1886 – 14 January 1978) was a German conductor and composer from Strassburg (Strasbourg), Alsace-Lorraine. He studied at the Town Conservatory of Strassburg, under Franz Stockhausen, then in Zurich under Lothar Kempter, and finally in Munich under Max von Schillings. After early conducting engagements in Strassburg he made his debut at Ulm in 1908 or 1909. He held appointments in Barmen (1909), at the Vienna Volksoper (1911), and at Nuremberg (1913), where he also conducted Philharmonic concerts. He progressed to Munich and then to Berlin (1933-1950), after which he returned again to Munich. Heger conducted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from 1925 to 1935, and again with his Munich company in 1953, when he gave the first London performance of Richard Strauss's opera Capriccio. He died in Munich.
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Heger
Karl Goldmark Biographical notes Karl Goldmark, also known originally as Károly Goldmark and later sometimes as Carl Goldmark; 18 May 1830 – 2 January 1915) was a Hungarian composer. Goldmark came from a large Jewish family, one of 20 children. His father was a chazan to the Jewish congregation at Keszthely, Hungary. His early training as a violinist was at the musical academy of Sopron (1842-44). He continued his music studies there and two years later was sent by his father to Vienna, where he was able to study for some eighteen months with Leopold Jansa before his money ran out. He prepared himself for entry first to the Vienna Technische Hochschule and then to the Vienna Conservatory to study the violin with Joseph Böhm and harmony with Gottfried Preyer. The Revolution of 1848 forced the Conservatory to close down. He was largely self-taught as a composer. He supported himself in Vienna playing the violin in theatre orchestras, at the Carlstheater and the privately-supported Viennese institution, the Theater in der Josefstadt, which gave him practical experience with orchestration, an art he more than mastered. He also gave lessons: Jean Sibelius studied with him briefly. Goldmark's first concert in Vienna (1858) met with hostility, and he returned to Budapest, returning to Vienna in 1860. To make ends meet, Goldmark also pursued a side career as a music journalist. "His writing is distinctive for his even-handed promotion of both Brahms and Wagner, at a time when audiences (and most critics) were solidly in one composer's camp or the other and viewed those on the opposing side with undisguised hostility." (Liebermann 1997) Johannes Brahms and Goldmark developed a friendship as Goldmark's prominence in Vienna grew. Among the musical influences Goldmark absorbed was the inescapable one, for a musical colorist, of Richard Wagner, whose anti-semitism stood in the way of any genuine warmth between them; in 1872 Goldmark took a prominent role in the formation of the Vienna Wagner Society. He was made an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Budapest and shared with Richard Strauss an honorary membership in the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome. Goldmark's opera Die Königin von Saba ("The Queen of Sheba"), Op. 27 was celebrated during his lifetime and for some years thereafter. First performed in Vienna on 10 March 1875, the work proved so popular that it remained in the repertory of the Vienna Staatsoper continuously until 1938. He wrote six other operas as well (see list). The Rustic Wedding Symphony (Ländliche Hochzeit), Op. 26 (premiered 1876), a work that was kept in the repertory by Sir Thomas Beecham, includes five movements, like a suite composed of coloristic tone poems: a wedding march with variations depicting the wedding guests, a nuptial song, a serenade, a dialogue between the bride and groom in a garden, and a dance movement. His Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 28, was once his most frequently played piece. The concerto had its premiere in Bremen in 1877, initially enjoyed great popularity and then slid into obscurity. A very romantic work, it has a Magyar march in the first movement and passages reminiscent of Dvořák and Mendelssohn in the second and third movements. It has started to re-enter the repertoire, through recordings by such prominent violin soloists as Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell. Goldmark wrote a second violin concerto, but it was never published. A second symphony in E-flat, Op. 35, is much less well-known. (Goldmark also wrote an early symphony in C major, between roughly 1858 and 1860. This work was never given an opus number, and only the scherzo seems to have ever been published. Goldmark's chamber music, in which the influences of Schumann and Mendelssohn are paramount, although critically well-received in his lifetime, is now rarely heard. It includes the String Quintet in A minor Op. 9 that made his first reputation in Vienna, the Violin Sonata in D major Op. 25, two Piano Quintets in B-flat major Opp. 30 and 54, the Cello Sonata Op. 39, and the work that first brought Goldmark's name into prominence in the Viennese musical world, the String Quartet in B-flat Op. 8 (his only work in that genre). Goldmark also composed choral music, two Suites for Violin and Piano (in D major, Op. 11, and in E-flat major, Op. 43), and numerous concert overtures, such as the Sakuntala Overture Op. 13 (a work which cemented his fame after his String Quartet), the Penthesilea Overture Op. 31, the In the Spring Overture Op. 36, the Prometheus Bound Overture Op. 38, the Sappho Overture Op. 44, the In Italy Overture Op. 49, and the Aus jungendtagen Overture, Op. 53. Other orchestral works include the symphonic poem Zrínyi, Op. 47, and two orchestral scherzos, in E minor, Op. 19, and in A major, Op. 45. Karl Goldmark's nephew Rubin Goldmark (1872–1936), a pupil of Dvořák, was also a composer, who spent his career in New York. Goldmark died in Vienna and is buried in the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery), along with many other notable composers.
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Goldmark
Goldmark - Rustic Wedding Symphony Musical notes from Wikipedia Rustic Wedding Symphony, Op. 26 (Ländliche Hochzeit) is a symphony in E flat major by Karl Goldmark, written in 1875, the year before his equally famous Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 28. It makes no pretensions to be a great symphony, but it is always highly enjoyable and has been in the repertoire of the great orchestras and conductors since its inception. It was first performed in Vienna on 5 March 1876, conducted by Hans Richter. Johannes Brahms, who was a frequent walking companion of Goldmark's, and whose own Symphony No. 1 was not premiered until November 1876, told him "That is the best thing you have done; clear-cut and faultless, it sprang into being a finished thing, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter".[3] Its first American performance was at a New York Philharmonic Society concert, conducted by Theodore Thomas on 13 January 1877. The work does not conform to the standard structure of a symphony, and it could just as well have been named a Suite. Its five movements rather than the usual four had precedents with Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Schumann's Rhenish Symphony.It is full of Central European charm, joviality and good humour. While Goldmark did not provide any specific program for the work, he did give each of the movements titles suggestive of aspects of a wedding in the countryside. The first movement is a Wedding March (Hochzeitsmarsch) followed by a set of 13 variations. While variations are commonly found in symphonies, it is most unusual for them to appear in the first movement. The variations offer constant changes of tempo, meter, rhythm, mood and harmony, and display his fine craftsmanship.
The second movement is a Bridal Song (Brautlied). The third movement, Serenade, opens with a theme playes by two oboes, later developed by the strings. It includes an imitation of bagpipes, played on oboe, clarinet, bassoon and cellos. The fourth movement, In the Garden (Im Garten), is slow and lyrical, its middle section moving to E flat minor. The finale, Dance, is the only movement of the work written in sonata form. It opens with a fugue. The Garden theme briefly reappears, before the Dance returns to end the movement rousingly. The Rustic Wedding Symphony was a favourite of conductors such as Thomas Beecham and Leonard Bernstein. It has been recorded a number of times, by conductors such as Beecham, Bernstein, André Previn, Maurice Abravanel, Jesús López-Cobos, Yondani Butt and Stephen Gunzenhauser.
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustic_Wedding_Symphony
Franz von Suppé biographical notes from Wikipedia
Franz von Suppé (Francesco Suppé Demelli) (April 18, 1819 – May 21, 1895 (aged 76)) was a composer and conductor of the Romantic period notable for his four dozen operettas.
Life and education Suppé was born Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere Suppé Demelli in 1819 in Split, Dalmatia, a descendant of a Belgian family that probably emigrated there in the 18th century. He was a distant relative of Gaetano Donizetti. He simplified and Germanized his name when in Vienna, and changed "cavaliere" to "von". Outside Germanic circles, his name may appear on programs as Francesco Suppé-Demelli. He spent his childhood in Zadar, where he had his first music lessons and began to compose at an early age. As a teenager in Cremona, Suppé studied flute and harmony. His first extant composition is a Roman Catholic Mass, which premiered at a Franciscan church in Zadar in 1832. He moved to Padua to study law, a field of study not chosen by him, but continued to study music. Suppé was also a singer, making his debut in the role of Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore at the Sopron Theater in 1842. He was invited to Vienna by Franz Pokorny, the director of the Theater in der Josefstadt. In Vienna, after studying with Ignaz von Seyfried and Simon Sechter, he conducted in the theater, without pay at first, but with the opportunity to present his own operas there. Eventually, Suppé wrote music for over a hundred productions at the Theater in der Josefstadt as well as the Carltheater in Leopoldstadt, at the Theater an der Wien, and a theater at Baden. He also put on some landmark opera productions, such as the 1846 production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots with Jenny Lind. Franz von Suppé died in Vienna on May 21, 1895.
Works Two of Suppé's comic operas have been performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Boccaccio and Donna Juanita, but they failed to become repertoire works. He composed about 30 operettas and 180 farces, ballets, and other stage works. Though the bulk of Suppé's operas have nearly sunken to oblivion, the overtures, particularly Leichte Kavallerie (Light Cavalry) and Dichter und Bauer (Poet & Peasant), have survived and some of them have been used in all sorts of soundtracks for movies, cartoons, advertisements, and so on, in addition to being frequently played at symphonic "pops" concerts. Some of Suppé's operas are still regularly performed in Europe; Peter Branscombe, writing in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, characterizes Suppé's song Das ist mein Österreich as "Austria's second national song". Suppé retained links with his native Dalmatia, occasionally visiting Split, Zadar, and Šibenik. Some of his works are linked with Dalmatia, in particular his operetta The Mariner's Return, the action of which takes place in Hvar. After retiring from conducting, Suppé continued to write operas, but shifted his focus to sacred music. He also wrote a Requiem for theater director Franz Pokorny, three Masses, songs, symphonies, and concert overtures.
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppé
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