Wozzeck (Gurlitt)

Wozzeck (op. 16) is a 1926 German-language opera in 18 scenes and one epilogue by Manfred Gurlitt after the fragmentary Woyzeck by Georg Büchner. It was premiered 22 April 1926 in Bremen, four months after the better known opera Wozzeck by Alban Berg had been premiered at the Berlin State Opera on 14 December 1925. The two composers were unaware of each other's projects, being among many artists stimulated by the publication of Büchner's play.^[1] Berg, unsettled by his publisher Universal Edition also publishing another opera on the same material so quickly reviewed Gurlitt's piano score, and in a letter to Erich Kleiber noted Gurlitt's work's quality and originality, but found the "broth" watered down. This verdict reflects Berg's own Wagnerian influences, while Gurlitt was nearer to the aesthetics of Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill.^[2]

^ Opera News Volume 61, Issues 9-17 -1997 Page 12 "Manfred Gurlitt, a composer from Berlin, was working on a Wozzeck opera at roughly the same time, and it was, and it was produced in Bremen in 1926, a year after Berg's Wozzeck. Gurlitt's intelligent, daring response to Buchner's staccato dramaturgy — one gets the impression that Buchner was writing screenplays ninety years ahead of time — was to write a series of musical scenes, separated by silences and not ordered into larger structural units, i.e. acts."
^ Christopher Hailey Alban Berg and His World 1400836476 2010 p20 "In a letter to Erich Kleiber he wrote, “I've already had a look at the piano vocal score of the Gurlitt Wozzeck. I am objective enough to be able to say that it's not bad or unoriginal—but I'm also objective enough to see that the broth in the kettle of this opera, that is, in the orchestra, is too watered down, even for 'poor folks' [arme Leut'].." ..Gurlitt's opera, with its lean, simplified textures and stylistic heterogeneity, is far less emotionally manipulative and much more in keeping with the aesthetic of the 1920s one hears in the music of such contemporaries as Hindemith or Kurt Weill.

[1] Opera News Volume 61, Issues 9-17 -1997 Page 12 "Manfred Gurlitt, a composer from Berlin, was working on a Wozzeck opera at roughly the same time, and it was, and it was produced in Bremen in 1926, a year after Berg's Wozzeck. Gurlitt's intelligent, daring response to Buchner's staccato dramaturgy — one gets the impression that Buchner was writing screenplays ninety years ahead of time — was to write a series of musical scenes, separated by silences and not ordered into larger structural units, i.e. acts."

[2] Christopher Hailey Alban Berg and His World 1400836476 2010 p20 "In a letter to Erich Kleiber he wrote, “I've already had a look at the piano vocal score of the Gurlitt Wozzeck. I am objective enough to be able to say that it's not bad or unoriginal—but I'm also objective enough to see that the broth in the kettle of this opera, that is, in the orchestra, is too watered down, even for 'poor folks' [arme Leut'].." ..Gurlitt's opera, with its lean, simplified textures and stylistic heterogeneity, is far less emotionally manipulative and much more in keeping with the aesthetic of the 1920s one hears in the music of such contemporaries as Hindemith or Kurt Weill.

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