No. 6. Wuchtig - Music

Egon Joseph Wellesz October 21 1885 – November 9 1974 Austrian Composer Teacher And Musicologist Pupil Of Arnold Schoenberg And Student Of Byzantine Music. Left Austria For England In The Wake Of The Anschluss — More Specifically As Noted In A Review Of The Recent Recording Of Songs And Orchestral Works On The Capriccio Label — Probably Quoting Their Program Notes — Was In The Netherlands At The Time By Good Fortune. Wrote Nine Symphonies And An Equal Number Of String Quartets The Former Starting In 1945 Only With His Arrival In England And The Latter Series Of Works Spread Throughout His Life. Also Wrote Much Other Music Including Operas — Of Which Die Bakchantinnen Was Revived And Recorded A Few Years Ago An Octet With The Same Instrumentation As Schubert's Piano And Violin Concertos One Of Each For Instance. Stylistically His Earliest Music Somewhat Like That Of Ernst Krenek Is In A Very Harsh But Tonal Style There Is A Definite Second Period Of Sorts Around The Time Of The First Two Symphonies 1940s In Which His Music Has A Somewhat Brucknerian Sound — In The Symphonies Sometimes An Equal Breadth Though Still With Something Of A 20th-Century Feel And Harmonies And After His Fourth Symphony The Austriaca His Music Is More Pan-Tonal/non-Tonal Serial In Character. This Is Consistent In For Instance The 8th Quartet With Hints Of Tonality. The Record Label Cpo In Osnabrück Has Now Released A Complete Recording Of His Nine Symphonies Though Aside From This His Music Has Been Comparatively Sparsely Represented On CD Or LP. The 3rd Symphony Unpublished Until Recently Was Only Premiered — In Vienna — In 2000 After The Composer's Death Receiving Its US Premiere The Year After From The American Symphony Orchestra Under Leon Botstein Though The Others Attained Premieres And Usually BBC Broadcasts During His Lifetime. Several Have Titles The 2nd The English 4th As Mentioned Austriaca And 7th Contra Torrentum . read less