Emil von Reznicek - 2 Symphonic Dances, for Piano

Hilde Findeisen - Piano
00:00 Csárdás
08:29 Tarantella
Emil von Reznicek (1860-1945) was an Austrian Composer. He began piano lessons in 1871; his first compositions date from 1876–78, when he was a student in Graz. He also studied in Leipzig with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn.
He would see his greatest triumph with the premiere of Donna Diana on December 16, 1894. That success opened up his career as conductor; he briefly ran for the succession of Eduard Lassen at Weimar and was Hofkapellmeister at Manheim in 1896–1899.
In Berlin, Reznicek enjoyed a good start with the premiere of his first symphony and a revival of Till Eulenspiegel at the Court-opera. But he subsequently distanced himself from the circle of Emperor Wilhelm II.

1911 proved to be a decisive year. Reznicek's wife Berta fell seriously ill and was in critical condition for a month, and the composer's autobiography of 1940 indicates that he seriously considered suicide at the time. Instead, he condensed his feelings in the confessional tone poem Schlemihl (1912). Schlemihl met with immediate success and launched a new phase in Reznicek's career as a composer, becoming the first instalment of a trilogy that also included Der Sieger (1913) and Frieden - Eine Vision (1914).

When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, Reznicek (who was not interested in politics) had a problem: his wife Berta was of Jewish origin (although she had been raised as a Calvinist). Soon there were threats to blackmail the family. Berta only in the very last moment was prevented from suicide. She retired completely from public life and died early in 1939 of a heart attack. Reznicek's daughter Felicitas attempted to leave Germany for Switzerland, but received no permit to work there. Therefore, she remained in Berlin, where she entered the German resistance movement as early as 1934. Later, she also collaborated with the British MI6, becoming one of its most important informants. (Winston Churchill bestowed on her British citizenship in 1951).
She had a personal relationship with Hitler's Adjudant Fritz Wiedemann and therefore access to the innermost circles of the Nazi regime. On the other hand, Emil-Ludwig (1898–1940), Reznicek's youngest son, was a fervent Nazi sympathiser even before 1933, joining the party and the SS. When he appeared in Nazi uniform in 1933, Reznicek was outraged and a complete split of the family was prevented only with the promise never to discuss politics. In 1934, Reznicek accepted Strauss's invitation to become the German delegate at the ständige Rat für die Internationale Zusammenarbeit der Komponisten.
Contrary to the opinion promulgated by Ernst Krenek, this was not a Nazi-organisation but an invention of Richard Strauss tolerated by the Nazi-Propaganda.

Reznicek was a friend of Richard Strauss, but relations between the two were ambivalent. Reznicek's symphonic poem Schlemihl (1912) has been seen as a parody of Strauss' A Hero's Life, though in his autobiography Reznicek rejected this interpretation. By his own account, his greatest influence was, in fact, Gustav Mahler. Sardonic humour features in much of Reznicek's music, from the prankster Till Eulenspiegel and the jibbering Blaubart of Ritter Blaubart to the Dance around the Golden Calf in Der Sieger and the expressionist Tarantella movement of the Dance Symphony (No. 5, 1925).

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