AMS Philadelphia 2009 Abstracts - American Musicological Society

134 saturday noon AMS Philadelphia 2009
WAlter gieseKing As coMPoser:
PreMieres of rePresentAtive WorKs
froM his unPuBlisheD MAnuscriPts
frank r. latino, university of Maryland, college Park
With performers from the University of Maryland School of Music
Maxwell Brown, piano; Joy Mentzel, piano;
Michael Mentzel, baritone; Alyssa Moquin, cello;
Onyu Park, soprano; Shelby Sender, piano
Walter Gieseking (1895–1956) became one of the most celebrated pianists of the twentieth
century, yet little is known about his life and even less about his compositions. Over the past
decade there has been an upsurge of interest in his music, including the republication of his
21 Kinderlieder, the second of his drei tanz improvisationen for piano (published as a “Tempo
di Charleston”), and the first publication of his Divertimento for Clarinet in A and String
Quartet, but a large body of his work has remained unknown. In this lecture-recital, we explore
Gieseking as composer by examining unpublished works and other materials recently
discovered in his personal archives in Wiesbaden, Germany. This vast collection, which is privately
maintained by the Gieseking family, includes clippings, correspondence, manuscripts,
photographs, programs, scrapbooks, and a myriad of other memorabilia. Until now, these rare
documents have never been made completely available for research, and slides of many items
will be presented publicly for the first time.
Gieseking’s first works date back to 1903, and his manuscripts show that he continued to
compose until his final years. He took this purported “hobby” most seriously, with the intention
of having his music printed and performed. He periodically played his own music
at home and abroad, often with distinguished colleagues (the muses for his works in many
cases), and a number of his compositions were sold by three German publishers and Hawkes
& Son in London. He also had his 21 Kinderlieder (1934–35), settings of poems by Richard and
Paula Dehmel, issued privately, doubtless to circumvent the Nazi restrictions on publishing
texts by Jewish authors.
An avid promoter of contemporary music, especially during the first half of his career,
Gieseking succeeded in developing a personal, modern yet tonal compositional style. The
quality of his output is convincing and illustrates his largely unknown creative talent. The
program comprises solo piano works, a piece for piano duet, a variety of Lieder, a melodrama
for speaker and piano, and a set of variations for cello and piano, and all will receive their
first public performance. These compositions enable us to trace Gieseking’s development as a
composer through six periods: (1) the conservatory years, (2) the World War I years (when he
served as a military musician), (3) the Weimar era, (4) the National Socialist era, (5) the World
War II years, and (6) the post-war era. An accompanying look at Gieseking’s memorabilia,
memoirs, correspondence, and other primary source materials enhances our understanding
of his life and career during each period and allows us to place his output from each era into
its proper context.
Gieseking’s unpublished works demonstrate his wide-ranging interests as a composer and
ability to write in multiple genres. When we consider his unpublished music alongside the
published, we discover a dedicated composer, whose fine works are well worthy of revival.