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Hans Pfitzner 3 Preludes from “Palestrina” 1915
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Pf. Orchestra of the German Opera of Berlin; C. Thielemann (Cond.) • 00:00 I. Ruhig - Andante • 07:32 II. Mit Wucht und Wildheit • 14:21 III. Langsam, sehr getragen • Palestrina is Pfitzner’s masterwork, and the preludes are probably some of the finest passages of the opera. Logic suggests that these Preludes represent the best music Pfitzner ever wrote, which is partly true. They certainly are the most often performed pieces by Pfitzner and show us Pfitzner at his most versatile and refreshing. What makes them appealing as concert pieces is the logic they share as a self-sufficient collection. Throughout them we can appreciate Pfitzner’s harmonic ingenuity, as well as his sense of pragmatic, austere, yet highly effective orchestration. He’s no Strauss or Mahler, more like Reger or Brahms, yet he’s still able to reach some very original soundscapes throughout. • • The first prelude, which is the opening to the drama, starts quite uniquely. Flutes doubled by solo violins enter with a rising interval getting progressively larger. The lowest voice is held as if it were an organ, and the voices stack onto each other creating unique sonorities. The textures suggest the polyphonic tradition of the late renaissance although the contrapuntal logic is obviously very modern. Throughout this entire prelude Pfitzner’s harmony is dictated by the logic of the independent voices, which leads to peculiar sonorities, parallel fifths, fourths, harsh dissonances, all of which are treated with exquisite delicacy. Thielemann takes this entire piece a tad more slowly than other recordings (check Keilberth’s historic production – he devised the current 1963 score under the direct guidance of Pfitzner himself), which lends an almost ethereal quality to the high melodies, and a very free sense of tactus. This section is repeated in clarinets and violas (d’amour!), and a choral is presented in the flute, in a more rhythmically clear manner. This section ends with a very personal closing gesture: syncopated quarter notes and a sixteenth-note flourish, which throughout the opera stands pretty much as Palestrina's signature. A timpani roll and a single low D introduce a desolate falling melody in the violins. More instruments join the mass, and the closing gesture is heard again. A dramatic moment is introduced at 05:17, with the thundering roll of the timpani: both themes, the long rising plainchant and the more fluent, falling melody, are combined in a passage full of sorrow and desperation. The flute choral returns. Pfitzner’s original prelude linked directly to the main plot here, introducing some very interesting improvisations on the viola and clarinet, but in setting these as standalone pieces, he modified the ending of this prelude including the closing bars of the actual opera, which ends with the signature gesture. • The second prelude starts out as quite the opposite of the first: a stormy, furious, and chromatic moto perpetuo signaled by the opening call of the six horns. The trumpets menacingly suggest another motive, the inverse of the horn call until they present it in its full with trombones, in a genius passage. The first section seems to be based mostly on this chromatic ostinato and this insistent motive. It’s an unwieldy beast, that retorts in almost atonality. Slowly after a final entrance of the trumpets and an explosion it melts away into an ample melody in the mass of the woodwinds, an elaboration of this first theme. The music seems to halt for a short instance before a monumental climax is reached at 11:11, where Pfitzner instructs the conductor to beat in groups of three bars, that is to say, periodically. The whole orchestra is involved here, like a massive full organ. The lament of the first prelude appears later on as the main melody. Everything cools down, an ominous figure in the low brass emerges slowly, like the shadow of a giant snake. Suddenly, the horns introduce the first theme again and the piece ends abruptly. • The third and final prelude is a slow and gentle thing, almost as if the previous one had drained all the energy out of us. It starts softly in the strings, with an expressive downward phrase in the violas, and a countersubject of insistent quarter notes that is going to permeate throughout the entire piece. The mood is reminiscent of the most pious Wagner. The entrance of the horns and woodwinds creates an ample space, like a dome. After a while, a single, simple melody line in the clarinet suspended over a web of strings initiates a new section. The motive is imitated in other voices, and the texture thickens. We reach a fully passionate highpoint with the persistent quarter notes in tenuto as the accompaniment. It all subdues and Pfitzner seems to want to return to the original material, but everything is compressed here and we quickly return to the cantilena-like melody in flutes and clarinets. There’s some more meandering by the orchestra until all dies down in the somber key of Bb minor.
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