Work of the Week - Karl Amadeus Hartmann: Miserae

Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s symphonic poem Miserae will be performed on Thursday 28 October by the Kasseler Staatsorchester conducted by Patrik Ringborg at the opening of the 2010 Kasseler Music Festival.

At its world premiere in 1935 as part of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) festival in Prague, the orchestral piece attracted a lot of attention since it was the first of a series of works which the composer wrote in protest against the Nazi-regime. Although Hartmann was not targeted by the Nazis directly (unlike many of his fellow composers), his music was boycotted until 1945.

In one of his autobiographical sketches Hartmann stated: Then came the year 1933, with its misery and hopelessness (…). In that year, I recognized that it was necessary to make a statement, not out of despair and anxiety in the face of that power, but as an act of protest.(…). During this period, I wrote my first String Quartet, the symphonic poem MISERAE and my first symphony with the words of Walt Whitman, "I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame."

Miserae is also preceded by the dedication: To my friends who had to die by the hundreds, and who sleep in eternity. We will not forget you. (Dachau, 1934)

Musically, the piece consists of a single movement divided into two slow sections framing a central more energetic development. The work ends with a powerful coda with reflections from the outer sections. Originally, Hartmann conceived Miserae as his first symphony and later, in his second symphony (1946), Hartmann returned to the same approach of composing several movements merged together to form a single powerful statement.

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