A Bruckner concert curiosity from 1907
The Bruckner Archive acquired the booklet back in 1912 from Brian Lamb in the Netherlands. When sending to booklet to me, he wrote: I have in my possession a very strange book over the 5th symphony, I don't know if you have a copy or know of it. It is called ANTON BRUCKNER FUNFTE SYMPHONIE IHR ENTWICKLUNGSGEDANKE Ein Versuch von ALFRED WESTARP and was written in Munich in August/September 1907. Inside the book is a pencil signature for a Viktor Egon Frensdorf, Munich 15 Okt. 1907, presumably he bought this book at the concert or might even be the mysterious Alfred Westarp. Apparently the writer is a pseudonym for whom I don't know but inside the cover is a press cutting for a scandalous evening, "ein symphonie-abend" where the orchestra was misused by the conductor Alfred Westarp (pseudonym) for a performance of the 5th symphony of Bruckner and based on the over-romanticized description of the symphony in the book I can only imagine what went on that night. The orchestra was the Kaim Orchestra which seems to have been around between 1904-1909. I suspect the scandalous concert took place in Munich between August and the end of September 1907. The book is full of excerpts from the full score of the symphony but does not say which version it is. Digging into the mystery further, I asked musicologist and music professor, Benjamin Korstvedt if he knew anything about it. He replied: There is a copy of this book in the University of Pennsylvania library. And as a graduate student I read over it and, just as Brian Lamb puts it, I found it to be a curiosity and I am glad to be reminded of it again, because it is actually quite interesting. Seeing this again, I checked the web and noticed that Alfred Westarp, which certainly seems like an unlikely name for a Muenchner, is apparently a pseudonym for Victor Egon Frensdorf, again as Lamb surmises. Finally, a couple of years ago I came across a reference in the Musikalischen Wochenblatt of 1908 to a "really bad" ('recht boese') concert in Munich in late 1907 in which the Kaim Orchester performed B5 under the direction of Westarp, who is identified as the author of a "peculiar interpretative essay that puts down in black and white a 'conception' of this mighty work that so entirely losses the spirit of the music that one should hardly waste any words on it." In conjunction with the concert, Westarp apparently denounced Loewe and Schalk for "falsifying" Bruckner's manuscript version of the score {this may be the first suggestion of this sort, I've run across, btw}. Yet in his performance he "turned everything on its head" making fortissimo into pianissimo, etc. in an "downright unbelievable" way. The reporter, Paul Ehlers, described it as a "perverse presentation"--which evidently placed the Trio before the Scherzo (!), as is suggested in the booklet--that did more damage to Bruckner than anything Hanslick or Doempke ever wrote. Looking at the music examples in the brochure gives some idea of how Westarp monkeyed with the dynamics and agogics. He accuses Loewe and Schalk of falsifying the score--and then does much worse! It is perverse---and rather interesting as a historical curiosity! | ||||||
