PFITZNER: Works for Cello and Piano

The sixteenth century composer Palestrina was, in a way, one of the heroes of the twentieth century composer Hans Pfitzner, so that it should come as no surprise to learn that the later composer wrote an opera (to his own libretto) on one phase of the life of the earlier one. Although he wrote several chamber works, songs, operas and orchestral and piano compositions, Pfitzner is known today chiefly because of his opera Palestrina., which is still occasionally performed, and some of the orchestral excerpts from it which are played a little more frequently. 

To hear Pfitzner's music is to forget there were such composers as Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Pfitzner's musical parentage appears to stem from Schubert, Schumann and Wagner. Even Brahms would appear to have been bypassed in the development of this interesting composer. It is not that his work doesn't show the influence of Brahms, it is simply that the presence of Schumann and Wagner is so strong that even in the cello sonata, opus 1, one senses Brahms occasionally, but feels Schumann and Schubert in the melodies and Wagner in the harmonies. It was because of his unwillingness to change  with the times,  his 

desire to “be himself," and his later unwillingness to bow to pressure from the Nazis, that gradually isolated the man from all but his most devoted friends and followers, just as Palestrina refused to bow to political and religious pressures four hundred years earlier. 

Pfitzner's life may be outlined in a few sentences: he was born in Moscow in 1869. His father, a violinist who became director of music at the municipal theatre of Frankfort on Main, was his first teacher. When he was seventeen, he entered the Conservatory at Frankfort, where he studied piano and composition. Upon completing his studies he received a teaching appointment at the Koblenz Conservatory. In 1893 he gave a concert of his music in Berlin, and in 1897 he became a teacher at Stern's Conservatory, also in Berlin. Pfitzner was in some demand as a conductor as well as teacher, so that we find him conducting at the Theatre des Westerns in 1903 and the Kaim Orchestra of Munich in 1907.  

Sonata for Cello and Piano in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 1

I. Sehr bewegt        10:25
II. Sehr langsam und breit        08:35
III. So schnell als möglich, beinahe durchweg        02:40
IV. Nicht zu schnell, mit Humor - Sehr langsam        08:08

5 Piano Pieces, Op. 47

I. Letztes Aufbäumen. Wuchtig, nicht schnell        03:09
II. Ausgelassenheit. Lustig, nicht überhetzt        01:48
III. Hieroglyphe. Sehr ruhig, versonnen        04:41
IV. Zerrissenheit. Rasch und heftig        01:38
V. Melodie. Langsam        06:19