Die Königin von Saba/Sába királynője/The Queen of Sheba/La Reine de Saba - 4 db kazettával [antikvár]

The composer Kari Goldmark was born at Keszthely on May 18, 1830 and died in Vienna on January 2, 1915. He regarded both Hungary and Austria, as his homeland, although he lived and worked for most of his life in the latter. He spent the first seventeen years of his life in Hungary, the almost seven remaining decades in Austria (Vienna and Gmunden). His visits to other countries (Switzerland, Italy, Germany), were for enjoyment or to attend first performances of his operas. In Hungary, he first went to music school in the town of Sopron, where he was later offered a job as first violinist by the local theatre; from there he went to one of the battles of the 1848-49 War of Independence with the National Guards. Not long afterwards, he played the violin in the theatre orchestras of Győr and Buda, and occasionally alsó gave solo performances. Although his meagre livingconditions did not improve much during his stay in Pest, it was at this time that he decided to become a composer and set out to study books on music theory and orchestral scores. The first recitál of a Goldmark work was given in Vienna, and the second took place in Budapest in 1859. From the mid-sixties onwards he performed and conducted his own works several times in Budapest. In the Exhibition Album of Hungárián Composers, an illustrated collection of end of century Hungárián composers, published in 1885, the portrait of Goldmark appears immediately after that of Ferenc Liszt. Similarly, his piano piece comes after Liszt's in the volume. At that time, Goldmark's compatriots considered him to be the country's second composer to achieve world fame, coming only after Liszt. When, in 1910, at the age of 80, he again visited his home country, his native town celebrated the visit as a national event. It was then that the Budapest University of Sciences conferred upon him an honorary doctor's degree. Writings concerning his activity in Austria are obviously considerably more detailed. In 1847/48 he attended classes at the Vienna Conservatoire on violin-, musical theory and orchestral practice, although this lasted little more than six months until the revolution broke out. Here he made his first acquaintance with the masterpieces of Viennese classicism. He continued to play the violin in two theatre orchestras, in the Theater in der Josefstadt, then in the Carltheater. It was in Vienna that he was awarded the first state scholarship which allowed him to devote most of his time to composition. Here in 1857, at his own expense, he gave his first recitál and later met outstanding personalities of the musical world, the most important perhaps, being Johannes Brahms. He worked as a piano teacher, chorusmaster and music critic. First in Vienna, then from the seventies onwards mainly in Gmunden, he composed the majority of his more than 130 works (including six operas). The most famous of these the Sakuntala Overture (1865), the Rustic Wedding Symphony (1876), the Violin Concerto in A minor (1877), and above all his opera, The Queen of Sheba (1875). In this opera, the orientál atmosphere which characterized Goldmark's works, and which distinguished him among the great musicians around him, is especially vivid. One of the most important messages of his memoirs "Notes from the Life of a Viennese Composer" - a volume written between the ages of 80 and 84, still with tremendous freshness - is the history and birth of The Queen of Sheba. The origin of the opera In the first half of the 'sixties Goldmark considered writing an opera. He was just over thirty then; this was a period when he destroyed manuscripts of all his early compositions, aware that he still had to create a work of real importance, worthy of recognition. He was 35, and no longer a youth when genuine success came his way, following the performance of his Sakuntala Overture. Goldmark's operatic background consisted of little more than playing in theatre orchestras for a decade with the in-built opportunities of acquiring somé knowledge of the ins and the outs of musical theatre. The idea of The Queen of Sheba originated with a remark made by one of the chief directors of the Vienna Court Opera House. Talking to Goldmark about Karoline Bettelheim, one of the composer's favourite piano pupils, who was then a young member of the Hofoper, the director said: "Look at that girl! Her face! The very image of the Queen of Sheba!" Inspired by this thought Goldmark wenttoS. H. Mosenihal{ 1821-77) the well-known dramatist and librettist who wrote the librettó although not entirely to the composer's satisfaction. Goldmark began the music in 1866 and with intervals, worked on the orchestral score, including alterations until the world premiere in 1875. The final date on the autographed score (in the Goldmark collection; Music Division of the National Széchényi Library, Budapest) is as early as November 12, 1871! However, the Music Collection of the Wiener Landes- und Stadtbibliothek possesses an autographed fragment from the score dated "December 28, 1874. The End." The Budapest autograph score contains 29 supplements more than the first edition of the piano score and orchestral score presumably issued with the approval of Goldmark during his lifetime. Among other things, the ending of the opera differed a great deal from that of the published version: instead of the elegiac decrescendo of the final version there was a pompous, pathetic finale with King Solomon and his retinue accompanying Sulamith to Ássad in the desert and with almost an apotheosis of fulfilled love. The world premiére saw the altered finale and