Favouring the Brave

Fortune favours the brave. Although many musical radicals found it hard to make ends meet and often had to face the opprobrium of a cautious crowd, their works endure. So it is Schoenberg rather than Schmidt, Berg rather than Braunfels and Webern rather than Wellesz who dominate our view of music in the German-speaking world during the first half of the 20th century. The Styrian-born composer Joseph Marx has likewise been overlooked in our assessment of the period.

The reasons for this historical partiality are many, not least because of the grave interruption of socio-political forces in the 1930s. The labelling of many modernists’ work, particularly by those of Jewish origin, as ‘degenerate’ by Goebbels summarily severed one of the vital organs of Austro-German cultural life. Yet even those who sat comfortably outside the degenerate camp, such as Joseph Marx, Carl Orff and Richard Strauss, couldn’t help but be drawn into the vortex, unable, ever since, to shrug off their Nazi tags. We needn't feel sympathy for their plight, but we should investigate their work and reappraise the period in the light of our findings.

Orff's megahit Carmina Burana needs no introduction, performed, as it is, by choral societies the world over. And with the current Advent Calendar and next year's Strauss binge, old Richard is well covered. Luckily pianist Simon Lepper and a host of great singing talent – including Elizabeth Watts, Clara Mouriz, Roderick Williams and Angelika Kirschlager – will reintroduce us to Joseph Marx's song output at Wigmore Hall. The three-concert survey begins this Sunday, preceded by a talk by yours truly, placing Marx in the context from which he is so often omitted. The concert, featuring Marx and Hugo Wolf's settings of poems from Paul Heyse's Italienisches Liederbuch, will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Click here for more information.

Tweet