Swiss composer Richard Flury this Weekend – his Violin Concerto Number 3 from 1944 – performed by George Kulenkampff, violin with the Berner Stadtorchester led by Kurt Rothenbühler in this Swiss Radio broadcast recording, made on February 6, 1946.
The late-Romantic composer Richard Flury (1896-1967) was born in Biberist, a tiny town outside the Baroque city of Solothurn in northern Switzerland. He went to school in Solothurn, later taught there, conducted its orchestra, andhad his operas and ballets performed at the local theatre by its semi-professional ensemble.
But Flury was more than just another conservative composer stuck in the provinces. His teachers included Ernst Kurth and JosephMarx of Vienna, and his music was performed by conductors such as Felix Weingartner and Hermann Scherchen and star instrumentalists like Wilhelm Backhaus and Georg Kulenkampff. His first opera was conducted by a former student ofBerg and Schoenberg who became his staunch advocate, and during the Second World War Flury worked closely with several Jewish emigré writers and musicians from Germany and Czechoslovakia.
In his music of the early 1930s, the influence of Berg and Hindemith became apparent as Flury dabbled in modernism and free tonality before moving back to a more traditionalist stance; but he was also a fine tunesmith who loved writing Viennese waltzes and violin miniatures after the manner of Kreisler. In both his aesthetic and his career, Flury offers a fascinating case of a man negotiating constantly between the centre and the periphery – and composing some very good music in the process.
Georg Kulenkampff was one of the most popular German concert violinists of the 1930s and 1940s, he was considered one of the finest violinists of the 20th century.
Georg Kulenkampff was best known for his interpretations of works from the Romantic period. He gave the premiere performance of Robert Schumann’s violin concerto 84 years after it was written and made the first recording of the piece. Additionally, his performances of the violin concertos of Bruch, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Glazunov are considered among the finest on record, but his early death from encephalitis and the fact that his recording career coincided with the Nazi era have prevented his name from being better known to modern listeners.
Kurt Rothenbühler, (May 12, 1905 – February 8, 1965). In 1926, Franz von Hoesslin persuaded the young medical student to finally commit to a career as a musician. Rothenbühler began as a répétiteur in Bayreuth in 1927/28 and subsequently worked as an opera conductor in Lucerne, Zurich, and Bern. In 1941, he succeeded Fritz Brun as director of his Bernese choirs (Cäcilienverein and Liedertafel), with which he primarily cultivated the great oratorio repertoire (from J.S. Bach to Willy Burkhard, Frank Martin, and Igor Stravinsky). Rothenbühler also conducted concerts, operas, and choral performances in Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and Poland.
Enjoy and come back next week.
