This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we present a Christmas bouquet of sorts.
Hugo Distler’s “Die Weihnachtsgeschichte” (“The Christmas Story”), from 1933, is an otherworldly, a cappella masterpiece, punctuated by seven variations on the carol “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” (“Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming”). Over the course of some 40 minutes, the work reinvents the Baroque Christmas cantata, after the manner of Heinrich Schütz, and does so quite beautifully, conjuring the calm and quiet of a bygone era. The composer described the piece as “an oratorio with chamber music character.”
Unfortunately, Distler’s life proved anything but calm. A man of conscience, he yet remained in Nazi Germany. He joined the Party with reluctance, when he realized his employment at the Lübeck Conservatory hinged on his doing so. Nevertheless, it did not smooth his path. The war separated him from his family, robbed him of many of his friends, and battered his psyche with nerve-wracking aerial assaults. Job pressures and fear of being conscripted into the German army further contributed to his anxiety.
Furthermore, his devotion to sacred music put him at odds with the authorities, who were intent on twisting the Lutheran Church to its own ends. The Nazis wound up branding Distler’s works “entartete,” or “degenerate.” Unable to reconcile the irreconcilable – serving both God and the Nazis – one day he pushed his bed into the kitchen and turned on the gas, committing suicide in 1942. He was 34 years-old.
Emil Waldteufel, by contrast, enjoyed much success and happiness. Although he was nearly 40 by the time he achieved international fame, his waltzes had long been a mainstay of Paris society during the Second Empire. It was the Prince of Wales – the future King Edward VII – who introduced him to London, where his music came to dominate Queen Victoria’s state balls at Buckingham Palace. One of his best-known works, “Les Patineurs” (“The Skaters’ Waltz”) was introduced there in 1882.
For our purposes, we’ll round out the hour with one of Waldteufel’s most successful waltzes from the other end of the decade, “Roses de Noël.”
The holidays are in bloom this week. I hope you’ll join me for “Christmas Roses,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
