...Karl Amadeus Hartmann, 8th Symphony

The music of German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann has almost disappeared from concert life, despite his eminent importance for the musical landscape in early post-war Germany. He was the founder of Munich's famous MUSICA VIVA festival for new music, and with him contemporary classical music rose from the ashes of World War II.

But what happened ever since? Hartmann suffered from cancer and died already with 58 years in 1963. His contemporaries, like the ten years older Carl Orff outlived him by almost twenty years. Nevertheless, the music by Hartmann performed in the concert hall today is still more manifold than Orff's notorious "Carmina Burana." There is his Symphony No. 1, his Violin Concerto, or his piano sonata "27. April 1945."

In this post I will discuss his 8th and last symphony, premiered in 1963, the year of his death. The movements are:

1. Cantilene
2. Dithyrambe: Scherzo - Fugue

Every single bar in this symphony reveals the unmitigated craftsmanship of Hartmann, in instrumentation, originality, and form. One example is the instrumentation at the very beginning, where he combines a C-Clarinet with the Vibraphone to a sound of strange acuteness. An example for his lifelong interest in polyphony is not only the four-part counterpoint two or three minutes into the first movement, but also the fugue at the end of the symhpony.

The fugue construes the second part of the second movement, called "Dithyrambe", what means "song of joy that ends with rapturous exultation" (Hartmann does not miss to inform us about that in a footnote in the score). A fugues seems to me the perfect device to achieve this goal, since it allows to generate an complex yet not chaotic atmosphere. Besides, he is in good company with Mozart, who decided to employ a fugue in his last symphony, with the same results (at least to me).

His younger friend and contemporary Hans Werner Henze wrote "Three Dithyramben" for chamber orchestra in 1958, also the second movement of his Third Symphony is called the same. Whether there is an influence or not is not easy to decide. The music of the two sound not unalike. However, Hartmanns last work has a density and strong emotional impact unachieved by Henze, at least during that time.


There is a video on Youtube (audio only) with Hartmann's 8th Symphony, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, who recorded all of Hartmann's Symphonies.