Karl Amadeus Hartmann - Miserae (Botstein/LPO)

Karl Amadeus Hartmann: Miserae, Symphonic Poem for Orchestra (1933–34)
Leon Botstein, conductor; London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Karl Amadeus Hartmann was one of the few German composers who resisted Nazism, with several works making overt references to the events of his time, this piece included. In Hartmann's own words:

"Then came the year 1933, with its misery and hopelessness, [and] with it, that which must needs have developed logically from the idea of despotism, the most horrible of all crimes--the war. In that year, I recognized that it was necessary to make a statement, not out of despair and anxiety in the face of that power, but as an act of protest. I told myself that freedom triumphs even at those times when we are annihilated--at least, this is what I believed at that moment. During this period, I wrote my first String Quartet, the symphonic poem "MISERAE" and my first symphony with the words of Walt Whitman, 'I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame.'"

The music itself is often acerbic and intense, but it is also varied in its approach. There are parodistic marches, phantasmic waltzes, uneasy quasi-contrapuntal sections, and long melancholic melodies. The premiere of the piece in 1935 was well received, although notably, the work's defiant undertones would likely have been lost on the audience. The dedication to the victims of Dachau that prefaces the work would only have been seen by the conductor Hermann Scherchen.

Sources:
Reinhardt, Lauriejean. "Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Miserae (1933-1934)." https://www.loc.gov/collections/molde... {I definitely recommend this article if you want a more in-depth discussion about the piece.}
Ross, Alex. The Rest Is Noise.

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