SCHREKER, Franz
Kammersymphonie
Wien/Leipzig, Universal-Edition, 1917
4to, contemporary half-leather binding, gilt title to spine, 101 pp.; good copy, rubbing to corners and spine, ownership stamp of Jasha Horenstein on front endpaper
First edition of Schreker’s Kammersymphonie, written in 1916 in celebration of the centenary of the Vienna Academy and first performed in March 1917 by an orchestra consisting of professors from the Vienna Academy, conducted by the composer. Franz Shreker (1878-1934) was an Austrian composer, conductor and teacher. One of the most performed living opera composers during the early years of the Weimar Republic, Schreker’s style was influenced by late Romantic harmony. “Klang”, or sound, was a central category in Schreker’s creative persona. No work better captures his sonic ideal than Kammersymphonie. Amidst the swelling power of the Nazi party, Schreker (the son of a Jewish photographer) lost his job, and after his early death from a stroke, the Nazis effectively silenced his music, an injustice that has only started to reverse itself in recent decades.
Presentation copy to Shreker’s former student, the conductor Jascha Horenstein (1898-1973). From 1917 Horenstein was a student of composition with Schreker at the Vienna Academy of Music. Horenstein began to conduct in 1919, when he founded the ‘Freie Orchester-Vereinigung’ (Free Orchestra Association) of students and amateurs, but when Schreker moved to Berlin in 1920 to teach at the High School for Music, Horenstein followed him, becoming a member of the same composition class as Aloys Hába and Ernst Krenek.
