Mention Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann’s legacy to music and many
listeners will think of the bizarre and imaginative stories Hoffmann
wrote which inspired Jacques Offenbach’s grand opera, Tales
of Hoffmann. Many will think also of the quirky Christmas
fantasy set as a ballet in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.
Others will think of how Hoffmann’s sense of the fantastic impressed
upon Schumann in his Kreisleriana, again directly inspired
by the author’s literary work. Some might even think about how
Hoffmann and his colleague Jean Paul seemed to find their full
musical counterpart only in the music of Gustav Mahler almost
a century later.
But
this new release from Profil’s Günter Hänssler Edition serves
as a reminder that Hoffmann was himself a practitioner of music,
nor was he a delusional dabbler along the lines of Friedrich
Nietzsche. The chamber works on this disc, including a harp
quintet, a trio and two piano sonatas demonstrate both fluency
and assurance in received forms. It all testifies to Hoffmann’s
romantic leanings as well as his distinctive sense of irony,
and deserves to be heard more often.
The
first work here is the Quintet for Harp and String Quartet
in C minor, which dates from around 1806, when Hoffmann
was making his living as a lawyer by day and writing music in
spare moments. Already an accomplished writer of music criticism,
Hoffmann’s move toward literary writing was to start soon after
this, and one can sense the forming of a vivid and original
creative spirit in this music. I rush to point that out specifically
for those who have been less than overwhelmed (as I was myself)
by Hoffmann’s Miserere in B minor, which was available
in a prominent recording on Koch/Schwann in the 1980s. That
work is unfailingly pleasing and well-steeped within the world
of Haydn, late Mozart and early Beethoven, and never commits
a gauche turn of phrase. Its sheer professionalism does point
up, however, its indebtedness to conservative models.
This
quintet, however, is more volatile, daring to risk more and
create a more personal sound world. Unfortunately, as Klaus
Harer’s informative booklet notes tell us, Hoffmann was never
able to get the work published. Rejected as too difficult, the
work has languished in obscurity ever since. The opening Allegro
moderato has plenty of poise, despite being permeated with
a restless, expressive unease. The creative integration of themes
is impressive and compelling. The period instruments used here
by harpist Masumi Nagasawa and the Hoffmeister Quartet (Ulla
Bundies and Christoph Heidemann, violin; Aino Hildebrandt, viola;
Martin Seemann, cello) are gloriously clear and colorful, captured
in gorgeous recorded sound. Like Mozart in his Flute and
Harp Concerto, Hoffmann basically wrote the harp part in
pianistic figurations. Nagasawa handles it all fluidly, interweaving
with the often harmonically bold strings. The slow movement
is rapt, subject to exquisite changes of mood. The propulsive
and ominous finale returns to the mood of the first movement,
ending the work sternly.
The
two fortepiano sonatas featured here are less forward-looking
pieces, though they too contain moments of piquant surprise.
The Sonata in A starts with a very Mozartian Andante,
progressing on to a more Beethovenian pair of minuets and a
more brilliant finale. This is the only instrumental work Hoffmann
had published during his lifetime, in Breslau, by Elsner, later a teacher of Chopin. The collection it was published
in, however, did not circulate out of the provinces, and the
work soon sank into obscurity. Hoffmann was unable to get any
of his other sonatas published, even the striking Sonata
in F minor, which starts with a wonderfully angular and
theatrical Adagio e con gravita as introduction to a
dramatic and eccentric fugue, marked Allegro. Hoffmann
impressively combines romantic wildness with rigorous structure.
The immediately following Larghetto makes an impact by
being contrastingly plain spoken and direct, though it soon
explores a range of moods, too. The brief Allegro finale
follows without a pause, resuming the fugal material of the
first movement to round it off. This vivid and unsettling piece,
only ten minutes long, would prove an interesting alternative
to hear on more pianists’ program. Beni Araki plays both sonatas
with flair and imagination on a delightfully tangy, even twangy,
fortepiano.
The
longest, latest and greatest work here is Hoffmann’s Grand
Trio in E major from 1809, the first year Hoffmann had a
breakthrough literary success. It opens with an attractive cello
solo, followed by a formal statement of the home key and theme
which does nothing whatsoever to prepare one for the harmonic
instability that starts a mere thirty seconds in. To be sure,
this music hints in between its neoclassical gestures at the
visionary ideas which were starting to emerge in his literary
work. One typical example is at 4:55,
where the piano sounds like it’s about to go into one of those
typical, satisfying trills to end a phrase. But Hoffmann quietly
pulls the rug out from underneath the phrase, suddenly sending
it off in a new direction. Little revelations like that abound
in this restless music which is so often Beethovenian, yet could
never have been written by him. Indeed, this work is so accomplished,
it makes one wonder what music may have lost through the twin
events of Hoffmann’s concentration on literature and his death
at the age of 46, precluding any later return to music. The
succeeding scherzo is delightfully spiky and strange, honoring
Hoffmann’s Beethovenian model while also looking forward to
later composers like Schubert and Schumann. No mean feat, considering
that it was written in 1809! The last movement opens with an
Adagio introduction in place of a slow movement. It is
a heartfelt, lyrical passage which gradually shades regretful,
setting up the brilliant burst of sunlight of the Allegro
vivace, high spirited music which covers a lot of ground,
alternating between galloping boisterously and more serenely
working in a motivic nod to the Finale of Mozart’s Jupiter
Symphony. It builds up to a dizzying passage of hurtling
notes, which slyly settles down, only to close with a sudden
sprint to the end. Exhilarating music, played with verve by
the Trio Margaux, which consists of Araki on fortepiano, Kathrin
Tröger on violin, and Martin Seemann on cello (which role he
plays in the Hoffmeister Quartet, too). This piece is a major
discovery.
These
performances are persuasive advocates for Hoffmann’s forgotten
musical genius, and we’re lucky to not only have these pieces
so well performed, but recorded in perfect sound, rich and colorful
yet never overbearing. Bravo to Profil and everyone involved with
this release. It changed me from dismissing Hoffmann to being
a true believer.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
