14.09.2024 by Alexandra Maria Dielitz
It is about two concerto works by the forgotten Ukrainian composer Thomas de Hartmann. And it is about musicians in times of war: The Lviv Symphony Orchestra, which has given over a hundred charity concerts for the benefit of the Ukrainian armed forces since 2020, traveled to Warsaw especially to record de Hartmann’s gripping violin concerto for the first time with star violinist Joshua Bell. A concerto in which the composer lamented the destruction of his homeland in the Second World War in 1943.
Image source: Pentatone
LISTEN TO THE CD TIP
The entry of the solo violin sounds like a cry of protest – Thomas de Hartmann wrote the Violin Concerto in 1943 with thoughts of his war-torn Ukrainian homeland. In the year the composer was born, it was part of the Russian Empire. After studying in St. Petersburg, de Hartmann lived in Munich for four years from 1908 and was actively involved in the avant-garde artist circle of the “Blue Rider”, in particular in Kandinsky’s sound experiments. Later he was part of the musical entourage of the Greek-Armenian esoteric Georgi Gurdjieff in Paris, while he earned his living writing film scores. He also liked to use widescreen sound in the Violin Concerto.
COLORFULLY ORCHESTRATED AND STUNNINGLY HARMONIZED
De Hartmann’s music has its roots in late Russian romanticism, but over the course of his life it was enriched with the most diverse facets of international modernism. Colorfully orchestrated and stunningly harmonized, it sometimes seems spiritual, sometimes expressionistic, sometimes down-to-earth folkloristic. The cello concerto from 1935 can now be heard on CD for the first time with Matt Haimovitz and the MDR Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies. It reflects the European persecution of Jews at the time through Klezmer echoes and synagogue atmospheres.
A FIDDLER WANDERS THROUGH THE RUINS OF HIS HOMELAND
However, the melodically enchantingly beautiful Cello Concerto is far surpassed in its impact by the later Violin Concerto – played with evocative urgency and fantastic virtuosity by Joshua Bell and the INSO Orchestra Lviv under the conductor Dalia Stasevska. De Hartmann wrote the concerto in Nazi-occupied France and dedicated it to a Jewish violinist friend who did not survive the war. The third movement, a ghostly “Menuet fantasque”, evokes the image of a fiddler wandering lost through the ruins of his homeland.
GREAT RECORDING
During his lifetime, de Hartmann was admired and performed by prominent artists such as Casals, Tortelier, Rampal and Stokowski. The fact that his work disappeared into obscurity so completely shortly after his death in New York in 1956 can only be explained by his own modesty. Fortunately, his manuscripts have been preserved in the music library of Yale University and have been edited and performed for several years with the support of the “Thomas de Hartmann Project”. If a recording as great as this one comes along, then nothing will stand in the way of the well-deserved renaissance of this great composer of the 20th century!