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Chronology
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The
operas stood at the centre of Gál's work in the post-war years,
but he was no less active in other areas. In this creative period (1919-1929)
many choral works were produced, among them the Phantasien
nach Gedichten von Rabindranath Tagore ('Fantasies on poems
by Rabindranath Tagore', Op.5), the cantata Requiem
für Mignon ('Requiem for Mignon', Op.26), Motette
('Motet') to a poem by Matthias Claudius (Op.19) and Epigramme
('Epigrams') to poems by Lessing (Op.27), both for 8-part mixed
a-capella choir, and Drei
Lieder nach Gedichten von Rilke ( 'Three songs to poems by
Rilke', Op.31) for 3-part women's chorus with piano accompaniment.
Vocal music played an essential role from the beginning. Even as a schoolboy
he went to the choir rehearsals of the Singverein of the Gesellschaft
der Musikfreunde, then as a student had taken part in Mandyczewski's
Sunday 'Bachiads' and together with the oboist Alexander Wunderer had
been co-founder of the Vienna Bach Society in 1912. In 1927 he founded
his own Madrigal Society, which was then the only choir in Vienna which
performed a-capella works. Gál was considered to be "one
of the first to bring about the renaissance of a-capella music-making
through his own compositions." [Erwin Kroll, p.175]. He himself
wrote in an essay on 'Vocal Chamber Music':
"What
our musical life is in need of is ... a revival of the joy of music-making,
a fresh impetus for domestic music... The glories of the a-capella
epoch have largely been made available in the last few decades by
new editions. Here is a treasure to be unearthed for practical music
which can be compared in importance to what musical life gained from
the rediscovery of the life's work of Johann Sebastian Bach. But above
all there is in this area a task for the creative musicians of our
own time, whose fulfilment could have an extraordinarily fruitful
effect on the whole of musical development: a new vocal music is there
to be created, music which, though born of the spirit of our time
and using the newly acquired expressive possibilities, leads back
to the long-buried sources of genuine vocal music, chamber music in
the true sense of the word, which offers pleasure and stimulus not
merely to listen but also to sing." ['Vokale Kammermusik',
Musikblätter des Anbruch X, Vol. 9-10, 1928]
In
these works one can already find full autonomy and maturity of personal
style, as well as a rich variety, conditioned by the material, which
gives his vocal compositions a special attraction. They also gained
high recognition in the reception at the time, as the following newspaper
extracts testify:
[Op.27 Epigrams
] "These madrigals count among the best that have been produced
in this field in recent years" [Allgemeine Musikzeitung]
or again:
"Choral
music has never been fresher and wittier, even in the heyday of the
madrigal, in the 16th century." [Adolf Aber in the Leipziger
Neueste Nachrichten]
There
also appeared a continual stream of piano and chamber works, among them
the Suite for Violoncello
and Piano (Op.6), the Violin
Sonata (Op.17), the Piano
Trio (Op.18), the Divertimento
for wind octet (Op.22), composed for the Kiel Music Festival of the
Allgemeiner
Deutscher Musikverein (General German Music Society) and the Second
String Quartet (Op.35), which was given its first performance
by the Rosé Quartet in Vienna and then (played by the Kolisch
Quartet) received highest recognition at the Zürich Music Festival
in 1932 as "a delightful, original, magnificently melodious and rhythmically
lively piece of music from the first note to the last" [Report on
the 62nd. Musicians' Congress in Zürich, Kieler Zeitung
16.6.1932].
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Click
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Hans
Gál, 1925
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The
Vienna Madigal Society
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Caricature
of Hans
Gál, 1927
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