The Romantic Orchestral Music of Felix Woyrsch

Recommendation

The north-German composer Felix Woyrsch (1860-1944) came from humble beginnings. His family was underprivileged and financially insecure due to the premature death of his father. As the story goes, Woyrsch’s musical talents were first discovered when he appeared at a fun fair as a Kunstpfeifer (whistler). Upon hearing him, the young boy’s choral director took him under his wing, providing piano and theory lessons at no charge and inviting him to perform in his choral concerts.

Still, with little other formal education, Woyrsch was largely self-taught, learning by independently studying the music of renaissance, classical and romantic masters. The compositions on this cpo CD came from a time when the direction of music had fragmented variously toward neoclassicism, impressionism, expressionism and atonalism. Felix Woyrsch continued to embrace the German symphonic tradition, in the company of other composers that included Franz Schmidt, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Paul Juon – composers whose music is being reevaluated and appreciated only in recent decades.

As you listen, the ties to Schumann, Brahms and Bruckner are evident throughout Woyrsch’s music. It is characterized by programmatic themes, late-romantic harmonies, bold dissonances, short and often layered themes, lush orchestration and a generally optimistic outlook. The music on this cpo CD includes Woyrsch’s Symphony No. 2, Op. 60 and his Hamlet Overture, Op. 56.

Performances by Thomas Dorsch and the Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester serve the music very well. If you are one of those listeners who would be perfectly happy had the romantic orchestral tradition continued a little longer, this will be a welcome addition to your collection.

Album Overview

A Bohemian in Altona

Felix Woyrsch was a genuine autodidact in composition and had an opinion of his own on this topic: “I did not have any bad teachers. Fine-sounding names: I studied counterpoint with Palestrina, Lassus, Sweelinck, Schütz, and Haßler and often sat at the feet of the great Sebastian; Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn taught me composition, and I owe a lot to the masters of more recent times, Brahms and Wagner.” As we can gather from this ancestral portrait gallery, the city music director of the then independent city of Altona did not aspire to be an innovator and a revolutionary. He belonged to a generational group of composers including Richard Wetz, Wilhelm Berger, Felix Weingartner, and Paul Juon, whose members carefully continued to develop the classical-romantic tradition in their own personal manner and style and enriched the history of genres such as the symphony with important nuances. Together with the Oldenburg State Orchestra, known for its enlistment in the cause of Albert Dietrich, we would now like to see justice done to Felix Woyrsch, the Northern German successor to Brahms.

Source: cpo records

Felix Woyrsch	Composer: Felix Woyrsch Felix Woyrsch (8 October 1860, Opava – 20 March 1944) was a German composer and choir director. Woyrsch lived in Dresden and Hamburg while young, studying in the latter under Ernst August Heinrich Chevallier. He held posts as a conductor and organist in several… read more
Thomas Dorsch	Conductor: Thomas Dorsch Born 1968 in Hanover, conductor and composer Thomas Dorsch began his career in Hildesheim (1st conductor and choir director), Wuppertal (choir director) and Mainz (1st conductor) and is now working since the start of the 2009/2010 season as Music Director at the Oldenburg State Theatre. He conducts… read more
Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester	Performers: Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester read more

 

 

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