fbpx
Wikipedia

René Leibowitz

January 01, 1970

René Leibowitz (French: [ʁəne lɛbɔwits]; 17 February 1913 – 29 August 1972) was a Polish-born naturalised French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher. He was historically significant in promoting the music of the Second Viennese School in Paris after the Second World War, and teaching a new generation of serialist composers.

Leibowitz, c. mid-1960s

Leibowitz remained firmly committed to the musical aesthetic of Arnold Schoenberg, and was to some extent sidelined among the French avant-garde in the 1950s, when, under the influence of Leibowitz's former student, Pierre Boulez and others, the music of Schoenberg's pupil Anton Webern was adopted as the orthodox model by younger composers.

Although his compositional ideas remained strictly serialist, as a conductor Leibowitz had broad sympathies, performing works by composers as diverse as Gluck, Beethoven, Brahms, Offenbach and Ravel, and his repertory extended to include pieces by Gershwin, Puccini, Sullivan and Johann Strauss.

Life and career edit

Early years edit

The facts about Leibowitz's early years are problematical, complicated by his practice of reinventing his history,[1][n 1] but it is known that he was born in Warsaw.[3] According to his pupil and translator, Jan Maguire, who wrote two studies of him for Tempo magazine in the late 1970s, Leibowitz was of Russian Jewish parentage; his father was an art historian.[4] During the First World War the family was obliged to move from Warsaw to Berlin, where, Maguire writes, Leibowitz began a career as a concert violinist at the age of ten.[4] That career was interrupted when the family moved to Paris three years later. By Maguire's account Leibowitz taught himself "the fundamentals of harmony, counterpoint and score-reading" while in high school, and took his Baccalauréat when he was seventeen.[4] At this point, his history becomes unclear. By his own account, credited by Maguire and others, he then went to Vienna to study with Anton Webern.[4] By other accounts he studied with Arnold Schoenberg.[5] Neither is now believed to be correct: Sabine Meine wrote in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in 2001, "Leibowitz's claims of having met Schoenberg and studied with Webern in the early 1930s remain unsubstantiated",[3] and in 2012 Nicole Gagné wrote in the Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, "despite his claims to the contrary, he never studied with Arnold Schoenberg or Anton Webern".[6] Other claims about Leibowitz's teachers – that he studied composition with Maurice Ravel and conducting with Pierre Monteux – have been discounted by some writers in the present century,[1] although as recently as 2010 in a study mainly focused on American composers Deborah Fillerup Weagel repeated the statement that Leibowitz was a pupil of Webern and Ravel.[7] There is no mention of Leibowitz in the biographies of Ravel by Arbie Orenstein (1991) and Roger Nichols (2011) or of Monteux by John Canarina (2003).[8]

Paris edit

In Paris, according to Maguire, Leibowitz earned his living as a jazz pianist and composed constantly. In his early twenties he married an artist from an illustrious French family and settled down in Paris, eventually taking French nationality.[4] During the early 1930s he was introduced to Schoenberg's twelve-note technique by the German pianist and composer Erich Itor Kahn. Maguire writes that Leibowitz easily fitted into "the ebullient intellectual and artistic climate of Paris in the pre-war years". His aesthetic interests were not confined to music, and he became friendly with leading figures from the world of modern art, notably André Masson and Pablo Picasso, and with literary figures including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus.[9] For Leibowitz, according to Maguire, composing was his most regular activity, and the one he thought most important, although he was known more for his commentaries, his critical and analytical writings, his conducting, and his teaching, all of which he considered secondary.[9]

When the Germans invaded France in the Second World War, Leibowitz was interned as an alien for a time. He did not succeed in emigrating, but, as the musicologist Reinhard Kapp puts it, "managed to survive somehow, partly hidden by [Georges] Bataille in Paris, at other times with his family in the Unoccupied Zone".[2] While in wartime Paris he clandestinely taught students from the Paris Conservatoire.[10] In 1944, just before the liberation of Paris, there was a party at the Left Bank apartment of the Swiss artist Balthus attended by artistic opponents of the Nazis, such as Picasso and others; Leibowitz provided the music.[4]

Post-war edit

After the liberation Leibowitz resumed his interrupted career, teaching, conducting and writing, drawing on the extensive material he had produced during his enforced wartime seclusion.[2] In 1947–48 and again in 1950 he visited Los Angeles to meet Schoenberg, whose cantata A Survivor from Warsaw he transcribed into full score.[2] Many of the works of the Second Viennese School were first heard in France at the International Festival of Chamber Music established by Leibowitz in Paris in 1947. Leibowitz was highly influential in promoting the reputation of the School, both through teaching in Paris after the war and through his book Schoenberg et son école, published in 1947 and translated by Dika Newlin as Schoenberg and his School (US and UK editions 1949). The book was among the earliest theoretical treatises on Schoenberg's twelve-tone method of composition; Leibowitz (like Humphrey Searle) was among the first theorists to promulgate the term "serialism". The book attracted hostile criticism from composers on various points of the modernist continuum. Aaron Copland condemned its "dogmatic and fanatical" tone, and Milton Babbitt felt that its musical discussions were superficial, with misleading analogies between tonal and dodecaphonic music, but it was well received by the musical public.[11]

Leibowitz's advocacy of the Schoenberg school was taken further by two of his pupils, Pierre Boulez and Jacques-Louis Monod, each taking different paths in promoting the music of Schoenberg, Webern and the development of serialism. Meine writes in Grove that during the 1950s Leibowitz's writings came under attack from some of the younger generation: Boulez and others accused him of "dogmatic orthodoxy and academicism".[3] In the view of another pupil, Maguire, Boulez, having learned the twelve-tone technique from Leibowitz, "proceeded to apply it indiscriminately to every musical element, disregarding the most fundamental qualities, the essence of music". Leibowitz warned his former student, "But the public has not yet assimilated Schoenberg", and tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid a rancorous falling out.[4]

Although Leibowitz composed continually, he seldom pressed to have his works performed. When he died, leaving an oeuvre of nearly a hundred pieces, the magazine Esprit commented, "Modest, perhaps too modest, he never spoke of his works, unless obliged to do so, doing nothing to get them played. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that at least three quarters of his scores have never been heard."[12] Since his death a representative sample of his works have been recorded. A 2013 CD set from the Divox label contains recordings of 22 of Leibowitz's works: 6 Mélodies, Op. 6; Flute Sonata, Op. 12b; Explanation of Metaphors, Op. 15; Duo for Cello and Piano, Op. 23; 5 Pieces for clarinet and piano, Op. 29; Sérénade, Op. 38; 3 Poèmes, Op. 46; Violin Concerto, Op. 50; Marijuana variations non sérieuses, Op. 54; Toccata, Op. 62; 3 Caprices, Op. 70; 2 Settings, Op. 71; 3 Poèmes, Op. 73; Motifs, Op. 74; Petite suite, Op. 75; 2 poèmes, Op. 76a; Chanson dada, Op. 76b; Suite, Op. 81; 4 Lieder, Op. 86; 3 Intermezzi, Op. 87; Laboratoire central, Op. 88; and 3 Poèmes, Op. 92.[13]

Although Leibowitz was receptive to a wide range of musical styles, he could not bear the music of Sibelius, and published a pamphlet about him under the title of Sibelius: the Worst Composer in the World;[14] he also severely criticised Bartók for writing music that was too accessible: Leibowitz felt that by failing to adopt dodecaphony in his later works Bartók was pandering to popular taste rather than helping to move music away from tonality in accordance with Leibowitz's notions of historical inevitability and composers' duty.[15] For Leibowitz, to write a popular work like Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra was a betrayal of modernism.[16]

Grove has articles on thirty-two composers who studied with Leibowitz in Paris or attended his sessions at Darmstadt or elsewhere: as well as Boulez and Monod, they include Vinko Globokar; Hans Werner Henze; Diego Masson; Serge Nigg; and Bernd Alois Zimmermann.[n 2] The writer Joan Peyser summed up Leibowitz's career:

one long splendid moment in his life, stretching from Paris in 1944 through Darmstadt in 1948, devoted to the promulgation of Schoenbergian ideas. When, in the late 40s and early 50s, Webern displaced Schoenberg as the venerated man and composers applied the serial idea beyond pitch, Leibowitz's time had passed. He refused to follow that path.[10]

Leibowitz's obituarist in Esprit dismissed this as simplistic:

Let us rise above the very "Parisian" (but untrue) cliché of a René Leibowitz, abandoned by his brilliant pupils, and fallen into oblivion after the 1950s. There were breaks, especially with Boulez, but that did not prevent later generations from coming to lean on him: the generation of Puig, Globokar, etc. It is also true that many myths were circulated about him, both by the academicians who did not forgive him for having introduced the virus of the atonal and by the avant-gardists who found him too conformist.[12]

Leibowitz died suddenly in Paris on 29 August 1972, at the age of 59.[12]

Recordings edit

In the early LP era, in the 1950s, Leibowitz conducted complete recordings of seven operas, which were generally well received, and have mostly been reissued on CD. They were Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de perles; Gluck's Alceste and L'ivrogne corrigé; Mozart's Zaïde; Offenbach's La Belle Hélène and Orphée aux enfers; and Ravel's L'Heure espagnole.[18] A set of Ravel's orchestral works was less well reviewed,[19] but Leibowitz received qualified praise for his set of Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder ("Leibowitz makes a serious attempt to produce a convincing performance; his slow tempi find justification in Schoenberg's markings, but his artists cannot persuade us that Gurre-Lieder is other than an historical curiosity").[20]

In 1961 Leibowitz conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a set of Beethoven's symphonies made by Decca for Reader's Digest;[21] it was among the first to attempt to follow Beethoven's metronome markings, following the pioneering set made in Vienna three years earlier, conducted by Hermann Scherchen.[22] Reviewers observed that although Scherchen had achieved tempos more closely approaching the composer's markings, Leibowitz, at speeds not much slower, had secured better ensemble than the earlier set achieved.[22] Initially the set was poorly received. The Stereo Record Guide called the performances "slack", "perfunctory" and "insensitive";[23] on its reissue in the 1980s a Gramphone reviewer thought much of the set "light-weight" and "lacking in gravitas", although he found the performance of the Seventh Symphony "magnificent".[24] In 1995 Richard Taruskin, analysing a selection of Beethoven recordings, concluded that Leibowitz, like Scherchen, delivered performances that were musically and musicologically superior to more recent attempts by "authentic" conductors such as Christopher Hogwood.[22] By the 21st century the performances had come to seem old-fashioned, in the view of a critic in Fanfare, who found them more akin to those by Herbert von Karajan than to those by specialist authenticists such as Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner.[25]

With the Decca team, Leibowitz recorded eleven more albums between 1959 and 1962. They included large-scale works such as The Rite of Spring, symphonies by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and concertos by Grieg, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, as well as short pieces by more than thirty composers ranging from Bach to Gershwin, from Wagner to Sullivan, Puccini and Johann Strauss.[21]

Works edit

Discography (incomplete) edit

As conductor edit

Mono recordings edit

Stereo recordings edit

Publications by Leibowitz edit

  • 1947 Schoenberg et son école: l'étape contemporaine du langage musical. [Paris]: J.B. Janin. (English edition, as Schoenberg and His School: The Contemporary Stage in the Language of Music. Translated by Dika Newlin. New York: Philosophical Library, 1949).
  • 1948. Qu'est-ce que la musique de douze sons? Le Concerto pour neuf instruments, op. 24, d'Anton Webern. Liège: Éditions Dynamo.
  • 1949. Introduction à la musique de douze sons. Les variations pour orchestre op. 31, d'Arnold Schoenberg. Paris: L'Arche.
  • 1950. L'artiste et sa conscience: esquisse d'une dialectique de la conscience artistique. Préf. de Jean-Paul Sartre. Paris: L'Arche.
  • 1950. Scènes de la vie musicale américaine. Liège: Éditions Dynamo.
  • 1950. Arnold Schoenberg ou Sisyphe dans la musique contemporaine. Liège: Éditions Dynamo.
  • 1951. L'évolution de la musique, de Bach à Schoenberg. Paris: Éditions Corrêa.
  • 1957. Histoire de l'opéra. Paris: Buchet Chastel.
  • 1969. Schoenberg. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
  • 1971. Le compositeur et son double: essais sur l'interprétation musicale. Paris: Gallimard. (Ed. augm., version définitive. Paris: Gallimard, 1986.)
  • 1972. Les fantômes de l'opéra: essais sur le théâtre lyrique. Paris: Gallimard.

Notes, references and sources edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ The musicologist Reinhard Kapp commented in 1988, "Trustworthy biographical data are almost impossible to find; instead there is a jumble of contradictions, assumptions, myths, and ill-considered conjectures."[2]
  2. ^ The others are Leni Alexander; André Casanova; Franco Donatoni; Antoine Duhamel; Hans Ulrich Engelmann; Giuseppe Giorgio Englert; Werner Haentjes; Claude Helffer; Stanko Horvat; Keith Humble; Carlos Jiménez Mabarak; Dieter Kaufmann; Maurice Le Roux; Wolfgang Ludewig; Jean-Louis Martinet; Norbert Moret; Diether de la Motte; Tolia Nikiprowetzky; Will Ogdon; Yannis Andreou Papaioannou; Ron Pellegrino; Allan Pettersson; Michel Paul Philippot; Jean Prodromidès; Ruben Radica; and Armin Schibler.[17]

References edit

  1. ^ a b Radcliffe, David. American Record Guide, vol. 68, issue 4, July/August 2005, p. 264
  2. ^ a b c d Kapp, Reinhard. "Shades of the Double's Original: René Leibowitz's Dispute with Boulez", Tempo, June 1988, p. 4 JSTOR 945132
  3. ^ a b c Meine, Sabine. "Leibowitz, René", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001, retrieved 4 May 2018 (subscription required)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Maguire, Jan. "Rene Leibowitz (1913–1972)", Tempo, December 1979, pp. 6–10 JSTOR 944986 (subscription required)
  5. ^ Hopkins, G. W., and Paul Griffiths, "Boulez, Pierre", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001, retrieved 4 May. 2018 (subscription required)
  6. ^ Gagné 2012, p. 158.
  7. ^ Weagel 2011, p. 35.
  8. ^ Orenstein 1991, index, p. 286; Nichols 2011, index, p. 420; and Canarina 2003, index, p. 349
  9. ^ a b Maguire, Jan. "René Leibowitz", Perspectives of New Music, vol. 21, no. 1/2 (Autumn 1982 – Summer 1983), pp. 241–256 JSTOR 832875(subscription required)
  10. ^ a b Peyser, Joan. "Rene Leibowitz (1913–1972)", The New York Times, 10 September 1972, p. D26
  11. ^ Shaw & Auner 2011, pp. 252–253.
  12. ^ a b c J.-M. M. "Rene Leibowitz", Esprit (1940–), no. 419 (12) (December 1972), pp. 943–944 JSTOR 24264155 (subscription required)
  13. ^ Divox CD set CDX-21103-04
  14. ^ Leibowitz 1955, title page.
  15. ^ Fosler-Lussier 2007, pp. 201–204.
  16. ^ Fosler-Lussier 2007, p. 192.
  17. ^ "Search results: Leibowitz", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001, retrieved 5 May 2018 (subscription required)
  18. ^ Sackville-West & Shawe-Taylor 1955, pp. 126–127, 305, 512, 556–558, 615.
  19. ^ Sackville-West & Shawe-Taylor 1955, p. 612.
  20. ^ Sackville-West & Shawe-Taylor 1955, p. 652.
  21. ^ a b Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical 1929–2009, accessed 5 May 2018.
  22. ^ a b c Taruskin 1995, pp. 227–229
  23. ^ Greenfield, March & Stevens 1963, p. 688.
  24. ^ Sanders, Alan. "Compact Disc Round-Up", Gramphone, August 1988, p. 343
  25. ^ Bayley, Lynn René. "Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 1–9. Egmont Overture. Leonore Overture No. 3", Fanfare; September/October 2014), pp. 125–127

Sources edit

  • Canarina, John (2003). Pierre Monteux, Maître. Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Amadeus Press. ISBN 978-1-57467-082-0.
  • Fosler-Lussier, Danielle (2007). "Bartók: reception in Cold War Europe". The Cambridge Companion to Bartók. Amanda Bayley (ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66958-0.
  • Gagné, Nicole (2012). Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7962-1.
  • Greenfield, Edward; March, Ivan; Stevens, Denis (1963). The Stereo Record Guide, Volume III. London: Long Playing Record Library. OCLC 23222066.
  • Leibowitz, René (1955). Sibelius, le plus mauvais compositeur du monde. Liège: Éditions Dynamo. OCLC 28594116.
  • Nichols, Roger (2011). Ravel. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10882-8.
  • Orenstein, Arbie (1991) [1975]. Ravel: Man and Musician. Mineola, US: Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-26633-6.
  • Sackville-West, Edward; Shawe-Taylor, Desmond (1955). The Record Guide. London: Collins. OCLC 500373060.
  • Shaw, Jennifer Robin; Auner, Joseph Henry (2011). The Cambridge Companion to Schoenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-78091-2.
  • Taruskin, Richard (1995). Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509458-9.
  • Weagel, Deborah Fillerup (2011). Words and Music: Camus, Beckett, Cage, Gould. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-0836-5.

January 01, 1970
rené, leibowitz, french, ʁəne, lɛbɔwits, february, 1913, august, 1972, polish, born, naturalised, french, composer, conductor, music, theorist, teacher, historically, significant, promoting, music, second, viennese, school, paris, after, second, world, teachin. Rene Leibowitz French ʁene lɛbɔwits 17 February 1913 29 August 1972 was a Polish born naturalised French composer conductor music theorist and teacher He was historically significant in promoting the music of the Second Viennese School in Paris after the Second World War and teaching a new generation of serialist composers Leibowitz c mid 1960s Leibowitz remained firmly committed to the musical aesthetic of Arnold Schoenberg and was to some extent sidelined among the French avant garde in the 1950s when under the influence of Leibowitz s former student Pierre Boulez and others the music of Schoenberg s pupil Anton Webern was adopted as the orthodox model by younger composers Although his compositional ideas remained strictly serialist as a conductor Leibowitz had broad sympathies performing works by composers as diverse as Gluck Beethoven Brahms Offenbach and Ravel and his repertory extended to include pieces by Gershwin Puccini Sullivan and Johann Strauss Contents 1 Life and career 1 1 Early years 1 2 Paris 1 3 Post war 2 Recordings 3 Works 4 Discography incomplete 4 1 As conductor 4 1 1 Mono recordings 4 1 2 Stereo recordings 5 Publications by Leibowitz 6 Notes references and sources 6 1 Notes 6 2 References 6 3 SourcesLife and career editEarly years edit The facts about Leibowitz s early years are problematical complicated by his practice of reinventing his history 1 n 1 but it is known that he was born in Warsaw 3 According to his pupil and translator Jan Maguire who wrote two studies of him for Tempo magazine in the late 1970s Leibowitz was of Russian Jewish parentage his father was an art historian 4 During the First World War the family was obliged to move from Warsaw to Berlin where Maguire writes Leibowitz began a career as a concert violinist at the age of ten 4 That career was interrupted when the family moved to Paris three years later By Maguire s account Leibowitz taught himself the fundamentals of harmony counterpoint and score reading while in high school and took his Baccalaureat when he was seventeen 4 At this point his history becomes unclear By his own account credited by Maguire and others he then went to Vienna to study with Anton Webern 4 By other accounts he studied with Arnold Schoenberg 5 Neither is now believed to be correct Sabine Meine wrote in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in 2001 Leibowitz s claims of having met Schoenberg and studied with Webern in the early 1930s remain unsubstantiated 3 and in 2012 Nicole Gagne wrote in the Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music despite his claims to the contrary he never studied with Arnold Schoenberg or Anton Webern 6 Other claims about Leibowitz s teachers that he studied composition with Maurice Ravel and conducting with Pierre Monteux have been discounted by some writers in the present century 1 although as recently as 2010 in a study mainly focused on American composers Deborah Fillerup Weagel repeated the statement that Leibowitz was a pupil of Webern and Ravel 7 There is no mention of Leibowitz in the biographies of Ravel by Arbie Orenstein 1991 and Roger Nichols 2011 or of Monteux by John Canarina 2003 8 Paris edit In Paris according to Maguire Leibowitz earned his living as a jazz pianist and composed constantly In his early twenties he married an artist from an illustrious French family and settled down in Paris eventually taking French nationality 4 During the early 1930s he was introduced to Schoenberg s twelve note technique by the German pianist and composer Erich Itor Kahn Maguire writes that Leibowitz easily fitted into the ebullient intellectual and artistic climate of Paris in the pre war years His aesthetic interests were not confined to music and he became friendly with leading figures from the world of modern art notably Andre Masson and Pablo Picasso and with literary figures including Jean Paul Sartre Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus 9 For Leibowitz according to Maguire composing was his most regular activity and the one he thought most important although he was known more for his commentaries his critical and analytical writings his conducting and his teaching all of which he considered secondary 9 When the Germans invaded France in the Second World War Leibowitz was interned as an alien for a time He did not succeed in emigrating but as the musicologist Reinhard Kapp puts it managed to survive somehow partly hidden by Georges Bataille in Paris at other times with his family in the Unoccupied Zone 2 While in wartime Paris he clandestinely taught students from the Paris Conservatoire 10 In 1944 just before the liberation of Paris there was a party at the Left Bank apartment of the Swiss artist Balthus attended by artistic opponents of the Nazis such as Picasso and others Leibowitz provided the music 4 Post war edit After the liberation Leibowitz resumed his interrupted career teaching conducting and writing drawing on the extensive material he had produced during his enforced wartime seclusion 2 In 1947 48 and again in 1950 he visited Los Angeles to meet Schoenberg whose cantata A Survivor from Warsaw he transcribed into full score 2 Many of the works of the Second Viennese School were first heard in France at the International Festival of Chamber Music established by Leibowitz in Paris in 1947 Leibowitz was highly influential in promoting the reputation of the School both through teaching in Paris after the war and through his book Schoenberg et son ecole published in 1947 and translated by Dika Newlin as Schoenberg and his School US and UK editions 1949 The book was among the earliest theoretical treatises on Schoenberg s twelve tone method of composition Leibowitz like Humphrey Searle was among the first theorists to promulgate the term serialism The book attracted hostile criticism from composers on various points of the modernist continuum Aaron Copland condemned its dogmatic and fanatical tone and Milton Babbitt felt that its musical discussions were superficial with misleading analogies between tonal and dodecaphonic music but it was well received by the musical public 11 Leibowitz s advocacy of the Schoenberg school was taken further by two of his pupils Pierre Boulez and Jacques Louis Monod each taking different paths in promoting the music of Schoenberg Webern and the development of serialism Meine writes in Grove that during the 1950s Leibowitz s writings came under attack from some of the younger generation Boulez and others accused him of dogmatic orthodoxy and academicism 3 In the view of another pupil Maguire Boulez having learned the twelve tone technique from Leibowitz proceeded to apply it indiscriminately to every musical element disregarding the most fundamental qualities the essence of music Leibowitz warned his former student But the public has not yet assimilated Schoenberg and tried unsuccessfully to avoid a rancorous falling out 4 Although Leibowitz composed continually he seldom pressed to have his works performed When he died leaving an oeuvre of nearly a hundred pieces the magazine Esprit commented Modest perhaps too modest he never spoke of his works unless obliged to do so doing nothing to get them played It is certainly no exaggeration to say that at least three quarters of his scores have never been heard 12 Since his death a representative sample of his works have been recorded A 2013 CD set from the Divox label contains recordings of 22 of Leibowitz s works 6 Melodies Op 6 Flute Sonata Op 12b Explanation of Metaphors Op 15 Duo for Cello and Piano Op 23 5 Pieces for clarinet and piano Op 29 Serenade Op 38 3 Poemes Op 46 Violin Concerto Op 50 Marijuana variations non serieuses Op 54 Toccata Op 62 3 Caprices Op 70 2 Settings Op 71 3 Poemes Op 73 Motifs Op 74 Petite suite Op 75 2 poemes Op 76a Chanson dada Op 76b Suite Op 81 4 Lieder Op 86 3 Intermezzi Op 87 Laboratoire central Op 88 and 3 Poemes Op 92 13 Although Leibowitz was receptive to a wide range of musical styles he could not bear the music of Sibelius and published a pamphlet about him under the title of Sibelius the Worst Composer in the World 14 he also severely criticised Bartok for writing music that was too accessible Leibowitz felt that by failing to adopt dodecaphony in his later works Bartok was pandering to popular taste rather than helping to move music away from tonality in accordance with Leibowitz s notions of historical inevitability and composers duty 15 For Leibowitz to write a popular work like Bartok s Concerto for Orchestra was a betrayal of modernism 16 Grove has articles on thirty two composers who studied with Leibowitz in Paris or attended his sessions at Darmstadt or elsewhere as well as Boulez and Monod they include Vinko Globokar Hans Werner Henze Diego Masson Serge Nigg and Bernd Alois Zimmermann n 2 The writer Joan Peyser summed up Leibowitz s career one long splendid moment in his life stretching from Paris in 1944 through Darmstadt in 1948 devoted to the promulgation of Schoenbergian ideas When in the late 40s and early 50s Webern displaced Schoenberg as the venerated man and composers applied the serial idea beyond pitch Leibowitz s time had passed He refused to follow that path 10 Leibowitz s obituarist in Esprit dismissed this as simplistic Let us rise above the very Parisian but untrue cliche of a Rene Leibowitz abandoned by his brilliant pupils and fallen into oblivion after the 1950s There were breaks especially with Boulez but that did not prevent later generations from coming to lean on him the generation of Puig Globokar etc It is also true that many myths were circulated about him both by the academicians who did not forgive him for having introduced the virus of the atonal and by the avant gardists who found him too conformist 12 Leibowitz died suddenly in Paris on 29 August 1972 at the age of 59 12 Recordings editIn the early LP era in the 1950s Leibowitz conducted complete recordings of seven operas which were generally well received and have mostly been reissued on CD They were Bizet s Les Pecheurs de perles Gluck s Alceste and L ivrogne corrige Mozart s Zaide Offenbach s La Belle Helene and Orphee aux enfers and Ravel s L Heure espagnole 18 A set of Ravel s orchestral works was less well reviewed 19 but Leibowitz received qualified praise for his set of Schoenberg s Gurre Lieder Leibowitz makes a serious attempt to produce a convincing performance his slow tempi find justification in Schoenberg s markings but his artists cannot persuade us that Gurre Lieder is other than an historical curiosity 20 In 1961 Leibowitz conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a set of Beethoven s symphonies made by Decca for Reader s Digest 21 it was among the first to attempt to follow Beethoven s metronome markings following the pioneering set made in Vienna three years earlier conducted by Hermann Scherchen 22 Reviewers observed that although Scherchen had achieved tempos more closely approaching the composer s markings Leibowitz at speeds not much slower had secured better ensemble than the earlier set achieved 22 Initially the set was poorly received The Stereo Record Guide called the performances slack perfunctory and insensitive 23 on its reissue in the 1980s a Gramphone reviewer thought much of the set light weight and lacking in gravitas although he found the performance of the Seventh Symphony magnificent 24 In 1995 Richard Taruskin analysing a selection of Beethoven recordings concluded that Leibowitz like Scherchen delivered performances that were musically and musicologically superior to more recent attempts by authentic conductors such as Christopher Hogwood 22 By the 21st century the performances had come to seem old fashioned in the view of a critic in Fanfare who found them more akin to those by Herbert von Karajan than to those by specialist authenticists such as Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner 25 With the Decca team Leibowitz recorded eleven more albums between 1959 and 1962 They included large scale works such as The Rite of Spring symphonies by Mozart Schubert Schumann and concertos by Grieg Liszt Mendelssohn Prokofiev as well as short pieces by more than thirty composers ranging from Bach to Gershwin from Wagner to Sullivan Puccini and Johann Strauss 21 Works editPiano Sonata op 1 1939 10 Canons for wind trio op 2 1939 String Quartet no 1 op 3 1940 Symphony op 4 1941 Double concerto for violin piano and 17 instruments op 5 1942 6 Songs for bass and piano op 6 1942 Tourist Death concert aria for soprano and chamber orchestra T Archibald MacLeish op 7 1943 4 Piano Pieces op 8 1943 3 Songs for soprano and piano T Pablo Picasso op 9 1943 Chamber Concerto for nine instruments op 10 1944 Wind Quintet op 11 1944 Sonata for violin and piano op 12a 1944 Sonata for flute and piano op 12b 1944 Empedokles for mixed a cappella chorus T Friedrich Holderlin op 13 1944 45 Variations for orchestra op 14 1945 L explication des metaphores Explanation of Metaphors T Raymond Queneau op 15 1947 Chamber Symphony Kammersymphonie for 12 instruments op 16 1948 La Nuit close music drama in three acts T Georges Limbour op 17 1947 50 4 Songs for soprano and piano T Michel Leiris op 18 1949 3 Piano Pieces op 19 1949 Piano Trio op 20 1950 L Emprise du Donne op 21 1950 String Quartet no 2 op 22 1950 Duo for cello and piano op 23 1951 Perpetuum Mobile The City A Dramatic Symphony for Narrator and Orchestra T William Carlos Williams op 24 1951 5 Songs for soprano and piano op 25 1951 String Quartet no 3 op 26 1951 Fantasy for piano op 27 1952 6 Short Piano Pieces op 28 1952 5 Pieces for clarinet and piano op 29 1952 La Circulaire de minuit opera in three acts T Georges Limbour op 30 1953 6 Orchestral Pieces op 31 1954 Concerto for piano and orchestra op 32 1954 Traume vom Tod und vom Leben Eine Symphonie fur Soli Sprecher gemischten Chor und Orchester T Hans Arp op 33 1954 55 4 Songs for soprano and piano T James Joyce op 34 1954 Concertino for viola and chamber orchestra op 35 1954 Rhapsodie Concertante for violin and piano op 36 1955 La notte T Angelo Poliziano Epigramma T Torquato Tasso and A se stesso T Giacomo Leopardi for mixed chorus op 37 1955 Serenade for baritone and eight instruments T Friedrich Holderlin Clemens Brentano op 38 1955 Symphonic Fantasy for orchestra op 39 1956 The Renegade for mixed chorus and instruments T Lionel Abel op 40 1956 Capriccio for high soprano and nine instruments T Friedrich Holderlin op 41 1956 String Trio op 42 1956 Sonata quasi una fantasia for piano op 43 1957 Humoresque for six percussionists op 44 1957 String Quartet no 4 op 45 1958 Trois Poemes de Georges Limbour for soprano and six instruments T Georges Limbour op 46 1958 Concertino for piano duet op 47 1958 Overture for orchestra op 48 1958 Damocles song cycle for soprano and piano T Michel Leiris op 49 1958 Concerto for violin and orchestra op 50 dedicated to Ivry Gitlis 1958 3 Bagatelles for string orchestra op 51 1958 Art for Art s Sake A Fantasia for Jazz Orchestra op 52 1959 Concertino for trombone and orchestra op 53 1960 Marijuana Variations non serieuses op 54 1960 Sinfonietta da Camera op 55 1961 Fantasy for violin solo op 56 1961 Introduction Funeral March and Fanfare op 57 1961 Concerto for cello and orchestra op 58 1962 String Quartet no 5 op 59 1963 Les Espagnols a Venise Opera buffa in one act T Georges Limbour op 60 1964 Quatre bagatelles for trombone and piano op 61 1963 Toccata pour piano op 62 1964 Symphonic Rhapsody for orchestra op 63 1965 Trois Etudes miniatures for piano op 64 1965 String Quartet no 6 op 65 1965 Suite for violin and piano op 66 1965 2 Songs for soprano and piano T Aime Cesaire op 67 1965 A Prayer A Symphonic Cantata for mezzo soprano male chorus and orchestra T James Joyce op 68 1965 Sonatina for flute viola and harp op 69 1966 Trois Caprices for vibraphone op 70 1966 Two Settings after William Blake for mixed chorus T William Blake op 71 1966 String Quartet no 7 op 72 1966 Trois Poemes de Georges Bataille for bass and piano T Georges Bataille op 73 1966 Motifs for speaker and instruments T Georges Limbour op 74 1967 Petite Suite for piano op 75 1966 Deux Poemes for soprano and piano T Michel Leiris op 76a 1966 Chanson Dada three melodramas for treble and instruments T Tristan Tzara op 76b 1966 Sonnet for soprano and five instruments T E E Cummings op 77 1967 Rondo capriccioso for piano op 78 1967 Capriccio for flute and strings op 79 1967 4 Songs for bass and piano T Carl Einstein op 80 1967 Suite for nine instruments op 81 1967 Legend for soprano piano and orchestra T Hart Crane op 82 1968 String Quartet no 8 op 83 1968 Saxophone Quartet op 84 1969 Labyrinthe music drama in one act T Rene Leibowitz after Charles Baudelaire op 85 1969 4 Songs for bass and piano T Paul Celan op 86 1969 Tre Intermezzi per pianoforte op 87 1970 Laboratoire Central Short Cantata for speaker female chorus and instruments T Max Jacob op 88 1970 Scene and Aria for soprano and orchestra T Georg Heym op 89 1970 Clarinet Sextet op 90 1970 Todos Caeran opera in 2 acts and 5 tableaux T Rene Leibowitz op 91 1971 Trois Poemes de Pierre Reverdy for vocal quartet and piano T Pierre Reverdy op 92 1971 String Quartet no 9 op 93 1972 Discography incomplete editAs conductor edit Mono recordings edit Bizet Les Pecheurs de perles Mattiwilda Dobbs Enzo Seri Jean Borthayre Paris Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra Preiser CD Gluck Alceste Semser Seri Demigny Mollien Hoffmann Lindenfelder Chœur et Orch Phil de Paris Jean Pierre Rampal Orchestre Philharmonique de Paris 1950 Gluck L ivrogne corrige Jean Christophe Benoit Bernard Demigny Claudine Collart Freda Betti and Jean Hoffmann Nixa 1951 Massenet amp Puccini A Portrait of Manon Anna Moffo Giuseppe di Stefano Flaviano Labo Robert Kerns RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra Testament CD Offenbach La Belle Helene Paris Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra Regis CD Offenbach Orphee aux enfers Paris Opera Chorus and Orchestra Regis CD also Preiser CD Ravel L Heure espagnole Janine Linda Andre Dran Jean Mollien Jean Hoffmann Lucien Mans Orch Radio Symph de Paris Vox PL7880 Rossini overtures to L Italiana in Algeri La gazza ladra Guillaume Tell Semiramide Pasdeloup Orchestra Urania USD 1014 Roussel Le Festin de l Araignee suite 1912 amp Le Marchand de sable qui passe Paris Philharmonic Orch Counterpoint Esoteric LP 5511 Schoenberg Gurre Lieder Ethel Semser Nell Tangeman John Riley Richard Lewis Ferry Gruber Morris Gesell Chœurs et Orchestre de la Nouvelle Association Symphonique de Paris Schoenberg Piano Concerto Op 42 Claude Helffer piano Orchestre Radio Symphonique de Paris Counterpoint LP Schoenberg Pierrot lunaire Ethel Semser The Virtuoso Chamber Ensemble Argo Westminster LP Stereo recordings edit May 1959 International Symphony Orchestra Schumann Symphony No 3 in E flat Op 97 Rhenish Liszt Mephisto Waltz No 1 S110 2 June 1959 London Festival Orchestra New Symphony Orchestra of London Stravinsky The Rite of Spring Debussy Prelude a l apres midi d un faune June 1960 Malcolm Frager piano Paris Conservatoire Orchestra Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor Op 16 June 1960 Paris Conservatoire Orchestra Offenbach Orphee aux enfers Overture Debussy Petite Suite En bateau Ravel Bolero Ravel La valse Gounod Faust Ballet Music Gounod Funeral March of a Marionette Saint Saens Danse Macabre Op 40 Pierne Marche des petits soldats de plomb Borodin Prince Igor Overture amp Polovtsian Dances Dukas L apprenti sorcier Bizet Carmen Suite Auber Les diamants de la couronne Overture Offenbach Les contes d Hoffmann Barcarolle Puccini Manon Lescaut Intermezzo Mozart Le nozze di Figaro K492 Overture February 1961 London Festival Orchestra Chopin Polonaise in A flat Op 53 Gade Jealousy Delibes La Source Intermezzo Waldteufel Les Patineurs Waltz Op 183 Dinicu Hora Staccato Dvorak Humoresque Op 101 7 B187 7 Ippolitov Ivanov Procession of the Sadar Op 10 Bizet Carmen Habanera Bach Gounod Ave Maria Franck Panis Angelicus Trad Londonderry Air amp Greensleeves J Strauss II Die Fledermaus Overture Falla El Amor Brujo Ritual Fire Dance Gershwin Porgy and Bess Excerpts Boccherini String Quintet in E G275 Minuet Sullivan HMS Pinafore Overture Rimsky Korsakov Tsar Saltan Flight of the Bumble Bee Beethoven Die Ruinen von Athen Op 113 Turkish March April May and June 1961 Inge Borkh soprano Ruth Siewert contralto Richard Lewis tenor Ludwig Weber bass Royal Philharmonic Chorus Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Beethoven Symphonies 1 9 January and February 1962 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Mozart Symphony No 41 in C K551 Jupiter Wagner Tannhauser Overture Bach Leibowitz Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor BWV 582 Schubert Symphony No 9 in C D944 Great Offenbach Leibowitz La vie parisienne February 1962 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Musorgsky Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night s Dream Overture Op 21 Mendelssohn Octet in E flat Op 20 Scherzo Mussorgsky Leibowitz Night on the Bare Mountain Beethoven Leonore Overture No 3 Op 72a Wagner Die Meistersinger Prelude to act 1 October 1962 Hyman Bress violin Earl Wild piano Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor Op 64 Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor Op 16 Beethoven Egmont Op 84 Overture December 1962 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Weber Der Freischutz J277 Overture Schumann Manfred Op 115 Overture March 1963 Leonard Pennario piano London Symphony Orchestra Liszt Piano Concerto No 1 in E flat S124 Liszt Piano Concerto No 2 in A S125Publications by Leibowitz edit1947 Schoenberg et son ecole l etape contemporaine du langage musical Paris J B Janin English edition as Schoenberg and His School The Contemporary Stage in the Language of Music Translated by Dika Newlin New York Philosophical Library 1949 1948 Qu est ce que la musique de douze sons Le Concerto pour neuf instruments op 24 d Anton Webern Liege Editions Dynamo 1949 Introduction a la musique de douze sons Les variations pour orchestre op 31 d Arnold Schoenberg Paris L Arche 1950 L artiste et sa conscience esquisse d une dialectique de la conscience artistique Pref de Jean Paul Sartre Paris L Arche 1950 Scenes de la vie musicale americaine Liege Editions Dynamo 1950 Arnold Schoenberg ou Sisyphe dans la musique contemporaine Liege Editions Dynamo 1951 L evolution de la musique de Bach a Schoenberg Paris Editions Correa 1957 Histoire de l opera Paris Buchet Chastel 1969 Schoenberg Paris Editions du Seuil 1971 Le compositeur et son double essais sur l interpretation musicale Paris Gallimard Ed augm version definitive Paris Gallimard 1986 1972 Les fantomes de l opera essais sur le theatre lyrique Paris Gallimard Notes references and sources editNotes edit The musicologist Reinhard Kapp commented in 1988 Trustworthy biographical data are almost impossible to find instead there is a jumble of contradictions assumptions myths and ill considered conjectures 2 The others are Leni Alexander Andre Casanova Franco Donatoni Antoine Duhamel Hans Ulrich Engelmann Giuseppe Giorgio Englert Werner Haentjes Claude Helffer Stanko Horvat Keith Humble Carlos Jimenez Mabarak Dieter Kaufmann Maurice Le Roux Wolfgang Ludewig Jean Louis Martinet Norbert Moret Diether de la Motte Tolia Nikiprowetzky Will Ogdon Yannis Andreou Papaioannou Ron Pellegrino Allan Pettersson Michel Paul Philippot Jean Prodromides Ruben Radica and Armin Schibler 17 References edit a b Radcliffe David American Record Guide vol 68 issue 4 July August 2005 p 264 a b c d Kapp Reinhard Shades of the Double s Original Rene Leibowitz s Dispute with Boulez Tempo June 1988 p 4 JSTOR 945132 a b c Meine Sabine Leibowitz Rene Grove Music Online Oxford University Press 2001 retrieved 4 May 2018 subscription required a b c d e f g Maguire Jan Rene Leibowitz 1913 1972 Tempo December 1979 pp 6 10 JSTOR 944986 subscription required Hopkins G W and Paul Griffiths Boulez Pierre Grove Music Online Oxford University Press 2001 retrieved 4 May 2018 subscription required Gagne 2012 p 158 Weagel 2011 p 35 Orenstein 1991 index p 286 Nichols 2011 index p 420 and Canarina 2003 index p 349 a b Maguire Jan Rene Leibowitz Perspectives of New Music vol 21 no 1 2 Autumn 1982 Summer 1983 pp 241 256 JSTOR 832875 subscription required a b Peyser Joan Rene Leibowitz 1913 1972 The New York Times 10 September 1972 p D26 Shaw amp Auner 2011 pp 252 253 a b c J M M Rene Leibowitz Esprit 1940 no 419 12 December 1972 pp 943 944 JSTOR 24264155 subscription required Divox CD set CDX 21103 04 Leibowitz 1955 title page Fosler Lussier 2007 pp 201 204 Fosler Lussier 2007 p 192 Search results Leibowitz Grove Music Online Oxford University Press 2001 retrieved 5 May 2018 subscription required Sackville West amp Shawe Taylor 1955 pp 126 127 305 512 556 558 615 Sackville West amp Shawe Taylor 1955 p 612 Sackville West amp Shawe Taylor 1955 p 652 a b Stuart Philip Decca Classical 1929 2009 accessed 5 May 2018 a b c Taruskin 1995 pp 227 229 Greenfield March amp Stevens 1963 p 688 Sanders Alan Compact Disc Round Up Gramphone August 1988 p 343 Bayley Lynn Rene Beethoven Symphonies Nos 1 9 Egmont Overture Leonore Overture No 3 Fanfare September October 2014 pp 125 127 Sources edit Canarina John 2003 Pierre Monteux Maitre Pompton Plains New Jersey Amadeus Press ISBN 978 1 57467 082 0 Fosler Lussier Danielle 2007 Bartok reception in Cold War Europe The Cambridge Companion to Bartok Amanda Bayley ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 66958 0 Gagne Nicole 2012 Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music Lanham Maryland Scarecrow Press ISBN 978 0 8108 7962 1 Greenfield Edward March Ivan Stevens Denis 1963 The Stereo Record Guide Volume III London Long Playing Record Library OCLC 23222066 Leibowitz Rene 1955 Sibelius le plus mauvais compositeur du monde Liege Editions Dynamo OCLC 28594116 Nichols Roger 2011 Ravel New Haven US and London Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 10882 8 Orenstein Arbie 1991 1975 Ravel Man and Musician Mineola US Dover ISBN 978 0 486 26633 6 Sackville West Edward Shawe Taylor Desmond 1955 The Record Guide London Collins OCLC 500373060 Shaw Jennifer Robin Auner Joseph Henry 2011 The Cambridge Companion to Schoenberg Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 511 78091 2 Taruskin Richard 1995 Text and Act Essays on Music and Performance New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 509458 9 Weagel Deborah Fillerup 2011 Words and Music Camus Beckett Cage Gould New York Peter Lang ISBN 978 1 4331 0836 5 Portals nbsp Biography nbsp Classical music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Rene Leibowitz amp oldid 1223935826, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.