SCHULHOFF - Concertino

Erwin Schulhoff: Concertino
Emma Resmini, flute
Julian Tello Jr., viola
Lena Goodson, double bass
Performed on Thursday, March 1, 2017
Field Concert Hall, Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia
0:00 Andante con moto
5:40 Furiant. Allegro furioso
9:05 Andante
13:43 Rondino. Allegro gaio
Born in Prague in the summer of 1894 to a German-Jewish family, Erwin Schulhoff began his musical education with encouragement from Antonín Dvořák. He continued his studies in Vienna, Leipzig, and Cologne, studying with other iconic figures like Claude Debussy and Max Reger. He twice received the prestigious Mendelssohn Prize, for piano in 1913 and composition in 1918. His earliest works bear the impressions of Debussy, Scriabin, and Strauss.
As an injured POW living in Germany after the end of World War I, he became fascinated with new musical developments springing up around him. One of the first composers to find inspiration from jazz, he was simultaneously drawn in by avant-garde visual art. Schulhoff was an odd bright light amidst what was by and large serious-minded, albeit experimental, new art being created in the post-war period. An offbeat whimsy and absurdism infused the works he wrote in these years. He wrote an entirely silent movement in his Fünf Pittoresken for piano, beating John Cage’s 4’33” by more than 30 years. He was fond of humorous titles for his works; his Partita includes the movements “All Art is Useless” and “Alexander, Alexander, You Are a Salamander.”
Through the 1920s and 1930s, Schulhoff incorporated neoclassicism, modernism, and jazz; this period was his most productive, and the works that resulted have proved the most enduring. But already in 1930, his Communist sympathies and Jewish lineage were making it difficult for him to find work. He was prohibited from playing concerts in Germany, and to make ends meet, he became a radio pianist in Prague. After the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, he was granted Soviet citizenship but was arrested before he could escape. He was taken to the Wülzberg concentration camp and died there in August 1942 from tuberculosis.
His Concertino, written in 1925, contains no dark forecasts of his untimely demise. The first movement opens with a melodic flute line reminiscent of Debussy or Mahler. The second movement, a “Furiant,” exchanges the flute for a piccolo, and is a sort of Bartókian romp, but with Schulhoff’s characteristic good humor. The third movement opens with a gently rocking duet between the flute and the viola, based on a Carpathian folk song. The piece closes with a barley two minute-long Rondo, with energetic and athletic writing for all three parts.