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Ferdinand Rebay
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Ferdinand Rebay
1880–1953
Complete works for clarinet and guitar First recordings
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Drei Vortragsstücke I. Praeludium II. Villanelle mit Variationen III. Rondo Walzer Beethoven arr. Rebay Dance No.4 from 12 Deutsche Tänze WoO8
2’33 3’13 4’27
1’38
Kleine Variationen 5’25 on a theme from Chopin’s Préludes Op.28 Beethoven arr. Rebay Dance No.5 from 12 Deutsche Tänze WoO8 Sonata in D minor I. Allegro molto moderato II. Thema und Variationen III. Tanz Rondo
1’42
Beethoven arr. Rebay 10 Dance No.7 from 12 Deutsche Tänze WoO8
1’43
Sonata in A minor 11 I. Sehr ruhig und Leise beginnend 6’13 12 II. Variations on the ‘Volksliedchen’ 5’26 from Schumann’s Album für die Jugend 13 III. Scherzo 4’29 14 IV. Finale: Allegretto moderato 5’53 Sonatina in B flat 15 I. Mässig Bewegt 4’32 16 II. Ruhig und Drucksvoll 5’03 17 III. Leichtbewegt mit Humor Rondo 4’53 Total time
9’11 4’11 5’37
Luigi Magistrelli clarinet (Ludwig Warschewski, German system, in B flat and A,1919)
Massimo Laura guitar (J. Hauser)
76’09
‘We are going to hear a lot more of Ferdinand Rebay.’ This blunt statement by Colin Cooper, in a concert review (Classical Guitar, October, 2007) of the Fifth Mediterranean Guitar Festival in Cervo puts an end to half a century of oblivion. It also announces, in a way, a late-comer among the great composers of 20th-century guitar music. Only a few years earlier, Rebay would have been known only by some rare scholars as the arranger of the piano reductions of the operas of his more famous contemporaries Korngold or Schreker. He died in Vienna in 1953, impoverished and forgotten. The beginning of his career appeared to be quite promising. Rebay’s father owned a music store in Vienna, and from an early age the young Ferdinand was taught both violin and piano, the latter by his mother who had been a pupil of Bruckner’s. In 1890 he was accepted as a chorister at the Heiligenkreuz Abbey where he was given a thorough musical education. By the end of his five-year stay, he had been appointed an alto soloist and sang for the Emperor at the nearby Mayerling Castle. Rebay then switched to art studies and, aged twenty, graduated from the Art School of the Austrian Museum in Vienna. During this period Rebay also took up the horn and enjoyed his first success as a composer of songs and choral works. In 1901 he entered the piano class of Joseph Hofmann at the Vienna Conservatory and studied composition with the eminent pedagogue Robert Fuchs, who counted Mahler, Wolf, Sibelius and von Zemlinsky among his students. Four years later, when leaving the Conservatory with a distinction in composition, Rebay’s catalogue already numbered around 100 works, including a piano concerto dedicated to Prof. Hofmann. Rebay assumed the directorship of the Wiener Chorverein and the Wiener Schubertbund, a position he held until 1920 when he was appointed professor of piano at the Musikakademie. He continued to compose prolifically, mainly in the area of vocal music, producing around 100 choral works, 400 Lieder and two operas. After the Anschluss in 1938, Rebay lost his teaching positions as well as his pension and was reintegrated only in 1945, a few months before his definite retirement. Rebay’s interest in writing for the guitar was triggered by his niece, the guitarist Gerta Hammerschmid (1906-1985) and by her teacher, his friend and colleague at the Musikakademie, Jakob Ortner (1879-1959), who probably introduced him to the technical possibilities of the instrument.
Recorded in October 2005 and May–July 2006 in S. Stefano Ticino (Italy) Sound engineer: Luigi Magistrelli and 훿 2011 Brilliant Classics
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The first known guitar work of Rebay is a Sonata for oboe and guitar in E-Minor, the première of which took place in Vienna on 31 March, 1925, as announced in the Wiener Zeitung. The sonata was performed in the presence of the composer by its dedicatee, the famous oboist Alexander Wunderer, accompanied by Hans Schlagradl. From 1925, Rebay started composing a great number of works for the guitar, amounting to a corpus whose importance we are only now beginning to become aware of. Rebay’s music solo guitar, although it includes six large sonatas, 20 songs without words and 25 sets of variations, is outnumbered by his chamber music works. The latter includes Lieder with guitar accompaniment and works for guitar duo, as well as works in different settings, ranging from trios with guitar to a septet for wind quintet and two guitars. Among Rebay’s most ambitious and important guitar works are the duos for guitar and a string or wind instrument. Fifteen such duos have come down to us. Substantial works, with a duration between 15 and 25 minutes, these duos have no match in the guitar repertoire. The abovementioned oboe sonata belongs to this group of duos, as do the pieces on the present CD (except the German dances and the Variations). Rebay commented himself on his experience of writing for the guitar (Österreichische GitarreZeitschrift, Vienna, 1926, 11) ‘[...] Having written a series of, popular, or art-songs, I started composing duos for winds with guitar accompaniment. I noted with satisfaction that blending the timbre of an oboe or a clarinet with the one of the guitar produces a sound by far more pleasant than the one resulting from the association of winds and piano. [...] With my guitar compositions, which go far beyond the scope of other contemporary works, I intend, above all, to encourage my fellow composers [...].’ Although he was familiar with the major figures of the Second Viennese School, Rebay’s own works rarely stray from a Romantic or Neoclassical language. They have at their root a strong melodic invention. Popular and folkloric elements are incorporated into his writing, as well as archaic formal structures such as suites, serenades, minuets and rondos. For his larger-scale chamber music he frequently uses a classic sonata form. The scarce original repertoire for clarinet and guitar, limited during the 19th century essentially to Heinrich Neumann’s six serenades, is almost trebled a century later by Rebay’s substantial contribution. As explained on the front page of the manuscript, the Three Concert Pieces can be played independently or form a little suite. The Prelude displays a melancholic melody over an accompaniment of arpeggios reminiscent of J.S. Bach’s little C minor prelude, a piece which is
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well-known to guitarists. The buccolic Villanelle with Variations requires the A-clarinet, unless the guitarist places a capo on the first fret. The Walzer-Rondo needs to be played in a sustained tempo, where the repeated trills present the clarinettist with quite a technical challenge. The autographs of all pieces reproduced here are held at the Fonds Rebay of the Austrian National Library in Vienna, except for the A minor Sonata, which is owned by the library of the Heiligenkreuz Abbey. None of the pieces was printed during Rebay’s life time. So as to separate the large-scale works better, three of Beethoven’s 12 Deutsche Tänze (WoO 8) were inserted (Nos. 4, 5 and 7). Originally for two violins and double-bass, they were arranged by Rebay for violin and guitar, but the clarinet version suits these Ländler dances, particularly well. Both pieces are major works and unique in the repertoire. The D-Minor Sonata, dating from the 1 November 1941, and dedicated to Gerta H., is an example of Rebay’s use of the sonata form. The dramatic first theme and the more contemplative second theme are strongly reminiscent of Brahms (the latter was a close friend and mentor of Rebay’s composition teacher, Robert Fuchs; there seems to be a direct filiation from Brahms’s late clarinet works, via Fuchs’s clarinet quintet (1917) to Rebay’s two sonatas). The slow central movement contains four variations on a theme. The stomping rhythm of the final Tanz-Rondo seems to be inspired by central European folklore. The Sonata in A minor was discovered in 2005 by Gerhard Penn among different sketches in the Fonds Rebay of the Heiligenkreuz Stiftsbibliothek. It is not dated and bears no dedication. To contrast to the other duos with guitar, there exists no fair copy version. The autograph is a much advanced pencil-written draft, the full dynamic shadings having already been added. It is entitled ‘II. Klarinett Sonate (a moll)’. The clarinet part is noted in the score like a non-transposing instrument in C. The annotation ‘Klang’ (‘sound’) and the lower extension of the range do, however, indicate that the C notation is only for proofreading purposes and that the sonata is to be performed on the usual A and B clarinet. The sonata is in any case written after 1 November 1941, the date of the (supposedly) First Clarinet Sonata in D minor. The last page bears an annotation in Rebay’s handwriting: ‘26-27 Min., grosse Sonate’. We are dealing with a substantial four-movement work. After a slow introduction, the principal theme of the Allegro ma non troppo, in classic sonata form, flirts with whole-tone scales. The slow variation movement elaborates one ‘Volkslied’ of Schumann, with refined polyphonic passages in the second and third variations. A pulsating scherzo with a walz-like trio leads to the finale.
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The Sonatina in B flat major dedicated to Gerta H., is dated ‘Sept. 1926’, but was premiered only on 10 April 1931, in Vienna by Karl Gans and the dedicatee. Given Rebay’s overwhelming creative output in the 1930s and 40s, this was usually the case of nearly half of the program. The final Rondo brings the Sonatina as well as this CD to a spirited end. 훿 Johann Gaitzsch, 2011
Luigi Magistrelli Luigi Magistrelli was born in S.Stefano Ticino, near Milan. He studied clarinet at the Conservatory of Milan with Primo Borali and attended masterclasses with Dieter Klöcker, Karl Leister and Giuseppe Garbarino. He has won prizes at competitions in Genoa and Stresa. He has performed as soloist with many distinguished orchestras and chamber groups, and he gives concerts as a duo with the pianist Sumiko Hojo. He has been principal clarinet with the San Remo Symphony Orchestra; currently he is principal clarinet with the Milano Classica Chamber Orchestra. He has recorded 35 discs for labels including Pongo Classica, Bayer Records, Nuova Era, Stradivarius, Arta Records (on early clarinets), ASV, Clarinet Classics, Leonarda, Talent Records, MDG Gold, Orfeo, Sony Classical and Dynamic. He has also recorded two Mozart CDs with the Camerata Tokyo and Karl Leister, and two CDs with Dieter Kloecker. He has edited unknown clarinet works for the publishers Eufonia, Accolade,Trio Musik, Poco Nota Verlag and Musica Rara. He is the chairman for the Italian branch of the International Clarinet Society and has performed at many clarinet congresses around the world. He has held masterclasses and given lectures in Italy, Austria (Mozarteum), Germany, Belgium, China, Israel, South Korea, Czech Republic, Mexico and the USA. He owns a personal collection of 200 clarinets of every kind. He is Professor of Clarinet at Milan Conservatoire. 6
Massimo Laura Massimo Laura was born in San Remo (Italy) in 1957. He started to study guitar in 1966. He won first prizes in the International Competitions of Alessandria in 1986, Milano in 1987 and Tarrega (Spain) in 1988. He has performed as a soloist in Seville, Chile, Italy, Swizerland and Japan. He has played in concert guitar concertos by Giuliani, Henze, Francaix, Porrino, Vassena, and Carter. Since 1980 he has been the official guitarist of La Scala Milano, playing under conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Carlos Kleiber, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Wolfgang Sawallisch. In 2006 he performed as a soloist with La Scala Philharmonic. Among his recordings are two solo recitals for the Rugginenti label. He plays on guitars by Ramirez, Fleta, Kohno, Guadagnini, Moccetti, and his preferred model, used on this recording, a Torres model of 1929 by Hermann Hauser.
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