Wanda von Debschitz-Kunowski

Hans Pfitzner circa 1910.

I had some solitary cleaning projects on my plate this last week and decided to use the time to cover some ground with a composer I’m not too familiar with. I considered a few options such as Alexander Glazunov and Hugo Wolf but I decided to go with Hans Pfitzner. I had just discovered Pftizner’s Christmas opera Das Christelfein and enjoyed it. Had I neglected Pfitzner unfairly?

I decided to listen to his most famous work, the opera Palestrina which is based on an episode in the life of Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and the threat of polyphony being removed from the Catholic Church. I found the music to be tedious. The topic is tedious as well with the entire second act being dedicated to the Council of Trent. Councils, of any type, don’t make for great opera. Maybe I had neglected Pfitzner fairly.

Next, I tried his Symphony in G-Major. Good God. I found my task of cleaning horizontal blinds one by one to be more interesting. I was starting to believe I wasn’t missing much with my neglect of Pfitzner.

I tried his Piano Concerto Opus 31. Not bad. The music had some direction and lacked what I perceived as aimless whimsy in the symphony. I was coming back around.

According to Wikipedia, Richard Strauss considered Pfitzner’s String Quartet in D-Major Opus 13 to be a masterpiece. Ok, I’ll listen. Yes, this was a great piece of music. I came around a little bit more.

After searching through Pfitzner’s list of compositions I settled on his Symphony in C-Major “An die Freunde” “An die Freunde” which means “To the Friends” or “To my Friends”. This piece is short but I liked it.

With my chores completed I sat down to reminisce and decide if I would become a champion of Pfitzner. I will not. My time with Pfitzner has come to an end except for the *String Quartet Opus 13. I will revisit this piece. I will also revisit “Das Christelfein next Christmas.

When involving oneself with classical music there is a temptation to consider oneself smarter than the market. That is rarely the case. The classical music market has had hundreds of years to refine its major players and I find it to be pretty accurate.

I might like to see Anton Bruckner get more attention than his pupil Gustav Mahler but Bruckner is, by no means, neglected. However, there are individual pieces of music that might be neglected. I think Amy Beach gets the right amount of attention as a composer but I also think her Piano Concerto in c-minor would be more welcome to my ears than yet another performance of either of Frédéric Chopin’s piano concertos.