Ernst BreidenbachAuch ich ein Davidsbündler
Works by Schumann, Zdralek, Reubke
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Davidsbündlertänze op.6
Marko Zdralek (*1973)
Auch ich ein Davidsbündler
Julius Reubke (1834-1858)
Klaviersonate b-Moll
catalog number 21137
Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum - This is the name of one of Europe’s oldest and most well-known Coffee Houses and it can be found right in the centre of Leipzig. Among its illustrious patrons were Bach, Lessing, Goethe and Napoleon. Robert Schumann was also a regular visitor. In 1834 the discussions and plans of these “young hotheads” (Schumann’s own words) led to the founding of the ‘Neue Zeitschrift für Musik’, which soon became the leading German language music periodical.
The Davidsbündlertänze op. 6, which Schumann composed between August and September 1837 are cyclic, with sudden changes of character and yet they are “very different to Carnaval”, as Schumann wrote: They “are as similar to it as faces are to masks”.
Julius Reubke, the son of an organ builder, first studied in Berlin and then moved to Weimar in 1856, at the latest, to study with Liszt. A letter of recommendation from Hans von Bülow, who described his as being “the best student at the conservatory”, paved the way for this transition. In Weimar he quickly became one of the most promising of Liszt’s circle of friends and acquaintances. Reubke died much too early, only 24 years old.
Schumann’s League of David utopia has occasionally been taken up by other composers, such as in two works by Thomas Kirchner, a friend of Brahms. In principle, an approach on two levels is conceivable, the musical level and the personal, historic-ideological level. The composer Marko Zdralek, born in 1973, must have been thinking along these lines when he decided on the title Auch ich ein Davidsbündler. His work for piano from 2003, which is recorded on this CD for the first time, amalgamates the gravitational pull of Schumann’s music and the commitment to an idealistic collective with concrete stylistic models.