TINTNER MEMORIAL EDITION • VOLUME
5
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op.
90 Performance recorded 21 March 1990
Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op.
16 Performance recorded 29 January 1992
According to Maestro Tintner, “Brahms
was frightened of the symphony. His first effort to write one became the first
piano concerto in D minor. Then he worked for years and years on Symphony
No.1. But once the spell was broken it was a different story. No.2,
the lovely one, was created in a few weeks instead of 21 years. He said he was
frightened because the shadow of Beethoven was always behind him, and when you
listen to No.1 you can see what he meant. The Second Symphony was
an immediate success and Clara Schumann, the widow of the composer and friend
of Brahms, wrote to him: ‘At last you wrote something that people will
like’.”
Hans Richter, who conducted the
first performance of the Third Symphony in Vienna in December, 1883,
referred to the work as the composer’s Eroica, a great compliment with
its comparison to the symphonies of Beethoven. The enemies of Brahms were predictably
hostile. Hugo Wolf, a fervent Wagnerian, was to claim that there was more intelligence
and emotion in a single cymbal stroke by Liszt than in all the three symphonies
of Brahms that had then appeared. To Wagner and his wife Cosima, Liszt’s illegitimate
daughter, Brahms was a rude, boorish man who composed mediocre music. Wagner
himself did not live to hear the Third Symphony, but nothing would have
altered his resentment at comparisons between Brahms and the inimitable Beethoven,
whose rightful successor he considered himself to be.
The Third Symphony opens
with a brief figure played by the wind and this serves as a bass to the intense
emotion of the succeeding theme proposed immediately by the violins. A second
subject, in A major, is introduced by the clarinet, accompanied by a string
drone bass, offering a pastoral contrast to the grandeur of the first theme.
The opening motif reappears with particular poignancy played by the French horn
in the central development, which closes with a richness of counterpoint typical
of the composer. The C major slow movement allows clarinets and bassoons to
predominate in the statement of the principal theme, the same instruments introducing
a second theme, followed by oboe and French horn. A moving cello theme in C
minor starts the third movement, a world away from the traditional lighthearted
scherzo. There is a Trio section, its sombre implications replaced
by the return of the principal theme of the movement played by the French horn.
The last movement, in which much of the argument of the symphony is concentrated,
opens ominously, the mysterious initial activity of bassoons and strings, sotto
voce, leading to a great storm of sound in which the composer shows all
his power. The finale is massive in conception, ending not with the defiance
of a Beethoven but with a gentle recollection of the first movement.
The Second Serenade in A major,
Opus 16, was completed in 1859 during the period that Brahms spent in the
pastoral beauty of Detmold, Germany. It was given its first public performance
in Hamburg in February 1860, the same year as its publication. It is scored
for wind instruments and lower strings, without violins, though Brahms also
made a four-hand piano arrangement of the work, a task that gave him considerable
delight. He revised the orchestral score of the Serenade in 1875. The
first of the five movements entrusts its first subject to clarinets and bassoons
in thirds, the former announcing the second subject, accompanied by plucked
strings. A lively G major Scherzo is followed by an A minor Adagio
in which Clara Schumann detected a liturgical solemnity, finding in the
following Quasi Menuetto movement something of the quality of Haydn.
A colourful Rondo brings the Serenade to an end.
Georg Tintner
Georg Tintner was born in Vienna in 1917. He began studying piano at the
age of six and to compose soon after. From nine to thirteen he was a member
of the Vienna Boys Choir, where he also conducted the choir in performances
of his own compositions. At thirteen he entered the Vienna State Academy as
a composition prodigy, studying composition with Josef Marx and conducting with
Felix Weingartner. At eighteen he was the conductor of a training choir of the
Vienna Boys Choir, and trained the choir for a performance of Mahler’s Eighth
Symphony with Bruno Walter in 1936. His compositions were being performed
in concert and broadcast by Austrian Radio, and at nineteen he became assistant
conductor at the Vienna Volksoper.
In 1938 he fled the Nazis, spending
a year in England before emigrating to New Zealand. For several years he ran
a poultry farm – as a result of which he became a total vegetarian – before
becoming Music Director of the Auckland String Players and Auckland Choral Society
in 1947. He was also an avowed socialist and pacifist, and as such he rode a
bicycle as “a symbol of the ultimate in harmlessness”.
In 1954 he went to Australia as
Resident Conductor of the National Opera and then the Elizabethan Opera. In
the following years he toured Australia widely and pioneered television opera
with the Australian Broadcasting Commission. In 1964 he was Music Director of
the New Zealand Opera, and in 1966-67 was Music Director of the Cape Town Municipal
Orchestra. Although offered an extended contract, Tintner left for political
reasons. He went to London and Sadler’s Wells (English National Opera) for three
years, with guest appearances with the London Mozart Players, the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia and the London Symphony Orchestra
for the BBC.
He returned to Australia in 1970
as Music Director of the West Australian Opera Company. In 1971 he was invited
as Music Director of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, a visit so successful
that it was repeated seven times. Tintner had a special rapport with young musicians,
conducting many concerts with the national youth orchestras of several countries.
A 1974 series of lectures have been broadcast many times in English-speaking
countries, and he was renowned for his concert introductions, some of which
may be heard in this edition.
Tintner’s repertoire included 56
operas, about two-thirds of which he conducted from memory. In
1974 he became Senior Resident
Conductor of the Australian Opera for two years. While there he conducted now-legendary
performances of Fidelio, expressive of his lifelong commitment to compassionate
humanism. From 1976 Tintner was Music Director of the Queensland Philharmonic
Orchestra until moving to Canada at the end of 1987 as Music Director of Symphony
Nova Scotia. He appeared with all Australian, New Zealand orchestras and opera
companies, and later with all major Canadian orchestras including the Montreal
and Toronto Symphony Orchestras. In the United States he toured with the Canadian
Brass and appeared with the Michigan Opera Theatre.
He made many commercial recordings,
including some for the CBC which are being reissued in the present Memorial
Edition. His Naxos series of all eleven Bruckner symphonies brought him worldwide
acclaim in his final two years.
Georg Tintner has been honoured
in four countries. He was awarded several honorary doctorates, and honours including
the Officer’s Cross of the Austrian Order Of Merit. He was a Member of the Order
of Canada
He died in Halifax in October 1999.
Tanya Tintner
