Co-financed from allocated funds as part of the RESEARCH EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE of the University of Silesia
This article has resulted from the fascination with the legacy of the composer Karol Rathaus, my individual experience collected while the recording some of his chamber works, and the great desire to share my observations concerning his forgotten or not disseminated works in Poland. In the course of introducing the reader to the characteristics of K. Rathaus’ works, some fragments will be used of the material recorded on two albums. The performers of the album entitled Karol Rathaus – Piano Trios are the artists of The Karol Rathaus Ensemble: Piotr Lato – clarinet, Marcin Hałat – violin, Marcin Mączyński – cello, Aleksandra Hałat – piano. For the recording of the next album, which will be released in February, entitled Karol Rathaus – Chamber works, Karol Rathaus Ensemble invited the following guests: Roksana Wardenga, Piotr Nowak, Paweł Cal and Damian Lipień. The material was performed entirely from manuscripts, and none of the pieces that appear on both the first and the second album (except Rhapsody Notturna op. 66) has been published so far. At this point, it is definitely worth asking the question: what was the reason for this and why? How is it possible that most of the works of the artist, hailed by Walter Schrank as „the hope of new music” in the 1920s, have not been published?
First of all, it should be noted that a large part of the composer’s output was burned down during a bombing in London in 1938. Another fact that resulted in the lack of publishing most of his chamber music was the conflict between Karol Rathaus and his Viennese publisher, Hans Hansheimer. In the whole situation, the author’s self-criticism (deepening in his American period) and abandoning all efforts to publish his own works turned out to contribute to this, as well as Rathaus’s growing willingness to devote himself to didactic work in Queens College. [1]
Fortunately, several decades after the composer’s death, his work experiences a renaissance, which is largely related to the work of musicologists, performers and lovers of his composing art. A longtime Polish researcher of Karol Rathaus’ work is prof. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak. Foreign researchers include prof. Martin Schȕssler, prof. Michael Haas, the pianist Daniel Wnukowski and, among fans and promoters, prof. Lev Deych. Despite many activities on the level of musicology and performance, some unpublished manuscripts still remain in the archives and await publication.
In my opinion, reading a manuscript is, metaphorically speaking, „the touching of the reality” of the composer himself, of his thoughts, emotions and the events from the world that he longed for, but which is possible to recreate thanks to interpretations of the forgotten works. For me, as an interpreter of Karol Rathaus’s works, the most important thing is to read the intentions of the composer-creator and all the stylistic and cultural nuances comprised in the convention of his works. The correct reading means finding a common denominator for the use of specific elements of musical and spontaneous expression, and for their mutual inspiration. The fascination with the compositional art of Karol Rathaus, both mine and of The Karol Rathaus Ensemble, has appeared only after some time since the first contact with the trios. Surely, understanding Rathaus’ s works required us, artists, to – firstly – fully master our part, as well as to follow every remark or nuance marked by the composer in the score. Any attempt to deviate from his idea, even to a minimal degree, has heralded failure.
Karol Rathaus was expelled from Berlin in the 1930s, and after several years in Paris and London, he emigrated to the USA, eventually finding his home in New York, where he became a professor of composition at Queens College. There he served as the head of the faculty and remained its member until his death.
The Karol Rathaus – Chamber works album is mostly filled with pieces from the American period. The only work recorded by The Karol Rathaus Ensemble from the Berlin period in the composer’s creative life is Eine kleine Serenade, op. 23 for trumpet, French horn, clarinet, bassoon and piano from 1927. [2]
At that time, Berlin was the capital of culture and science in Europe, in which various artistic and scientific trends intertwined. What took place there was an exchange of experiences, and any form of experiment in art was extremely desirable and appreciated at that time. It was in Berlin that the career of Karol Rathaus most fully developed and his compositions were performed by many leading musicians, including such pianists as Stefan Askenase and Walter Giseking, conductors Wilhelm Furtwångler and Erich Kleiber. K. Rathaus, as a pioneer of modernist aesthetics, wrote music for the films: Murderer Dimitri Karamasoff and Amok directed by Franz Ozep, as well as the very popular music for the play Uriel Acosta [3]. For the composer, the Berlin period was a time of his enormous development under the wings of the famous composer and teacher Franz Schrecker, thanks to whom he was able to broaden his individual language [4]. Eine kleine Serenade is an example and a proof of K. Rathaus breaking with stereotypes, one of the manifestations of which was the use of an unusual selection of instruments. After the premiere of the composition on April 22, 1929, the composer wrote to the Universal Edition publishing house:
A quintet whose Dr. Kalmus could not accept due to its too large size, has gained great popularity in the press, and in the near future it will have numerous concert and radio performances. [5]
The following words of Zofia Helman are adequate to describe Eine kleine Serenade:
When examining the few surviving works from the Vienna-Berlin period, a shift can be observed from post-romantic harmonics, still remaining in the major-minor system, to quarter-second harmonics, characteristic of atonal compositions by Arnold Schoenberg, or rather a combination of both cases. [6]
This piece has an interesting composition and a modern sound typical of artists from the „Neue Musik” circle. It also reveals the influence of jazz that was omnipresent in Berlin in the 1920s. As the composer writes in his essay Jazzdämmerung?, jazz music came to the European soil and was fully absorbed, both on the vocal, instrumental and dance levels. [7] It can be assumed that the inspiration for writing Eine kleine Serenade was the big-band established in Orléans in 1923 and considered to be the first jazz orchestra. The most frequent big-band line-up is: clarinet, saxophone, trombone, trumpet. This typical combination in Eine kleine Serenade, op. 23 probably underwent some transformation, the saxophone was replaced by the bassoon, while the trombone was replaced by the French horn. One of the theses worth analyzing is the transfer of rhythmic structures, typical of the 1920s jazz, to the Eine kleine Serenade score. There are many fragments in this work in which the big-band’s sound idea of achieving a sound dialogue between brass and woodwinds has found its full application.
Eine kleine Serenade was created alongside such works as the opera Fremde Erde or the stage piece Der Letzte Pierrot, the success of which was particularly satisfying for Karol Rathaus due to the contact with a wide audience. The Berlin period of prosperity in the artistic life of Karol Rathaus ended abruptly with the rise of Nazism in Germany, which resulted in Rathaus’s moving to Paris. As a holder of an Austrian passport, the composer was able to travel from Paris to Berlin many times, but only until 1935. [8]
It is assumed that elements of jazz are heard only and exclusively in the Berlin period of Karol Rathaus’ creative life. Taking into account the recorded and explored by me fragments of the Trio Serenade, op. 69 for violin, cello and piano, as well as Dedication and Allegro op. 64 (1949) and Pastorale and Danse from 1938, I am of the opinion that elements of jazz can also be found in the American period of the composer’s work. The term „jazz” was used in the 1920s and this was the name given to all music of black people from across the ocean. The particular fragments of the Trio Serenade bring to mind some elements of rhythmic structures transferred directly from big-band scores from the 1940s.
In the document entitled Jazzdämmerung?, Karol Rathaus criticized the alleged enthusiasm for jazz as a phenomenon that had been commercialized (in a broad sense) in Europe. According to the composer, the music played in Europe under the name of jazz was the one that had largely drifted apart from its roots and had undergone Europeanization. The composer was very critical about artists such as Paul Whiteman and George Gershwin, who, according to him, falsified and trivialized original jazz music. In turn, he praised such composers as Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky and Darius Milhaud as those who used elements referring to the roots of jazz in their works in an ambitious way, creating art at its highest level.
Karol Rathaus used the attributes of jazz stylistics, related to the peak period of the swing era in the United States, by using repetitive and rhythmic structures. The repeatability of the sequences with overlapping and frequently changing melodic-harmonic systems suggests the composer’s fascination with the aforementioned trend in American music. [9] What can serve as a confirmation of this thesis and a proof of in-depth understanding of musical changes taking place on the American continent are the composer’s statements in Jazzdämmerung?:
[…] We got the real idea of jazz from black people in Africa. Chocolate Kiddies, Revue Josephine Baker’s and Black People led us to the roots of jazz. Here it achieved perfection, the causes of which lie deeply rooted. The throaty sounds of Negro singers, the melancholy of the native land (crystallized through the simple, new Christian faith and under the influence of the missionary spirit) created for the first time an art whose immense depth became an artistic experience for us. […] Now that we know jazz, which in about 12 years has conquered the lands of almost the entire civilized world, it is danced and sung, it has found its place in both folk and classical music. We have also found its proper essence, because we have revealed all the secrets of its instruments and we can freely use them […] [10]
The first of the cited works, the Trio Serenade, op. 69, was written in Salisbury Cove, Maine, in the north-eastern part of the United States, and was commissioned by the Albineri Trio, to whom the piece was dedicated by Karol Rathaus. The trio premiered at the Society of New York at the Town Hall in New York on January 31, 1954. The composer himself writes about this work of him as follows:
In the first part, the sonata form was used in a free but disciplined way […] and its integration stems from the thematic material and does not follow any pattern. The second part contains an exchange of various ideas between the three instruments, a contrasting trio and a short return with a coda. Free dialogue between the instruments distinguishes the third part, which is expressive, suggestive, intense and restrained. The last part begins with an extended introduction, the material of which is then further elaborated. A vivid allegro vivace follows, rhythmically stressed […] [11]
The Trio Serenade impresses with its unusual form, which results from combining the trio with a serenade, as well as the emerging elements characteristic of jazz music. The composer bestowed these elements especially on the cello part, which is dominated by rhythmic structures resembling walking.
One of the characteristic features of Trio Serenade is spaciousness and a very wide ambitus of texture. In particular, in Parts I and IV it can be observed that K. Rathaus very often introduces changes to the registers or very quick transitions between them. Another feature is the use of scale-chromatic sequences in parallel systems that appear both in the Trio Serenade and in the Trio, op. 53.
Another piece, apart from Pastorale and Danse, in which there are clear echoes of Karol Szymanowski’s work is the three-part Trio op. 53. Both composers were representatives of the German school of composition. Karol Rathaus studied with Franz Schrecker, whose work was often described as a combination of German romanticism and French impressionism, similarly to the work of Karol Szymanowski. Thanks to the dissemination of K. Szymanowski’s works in the USA by Grzegorz Fitelberg, Karol Rathaus could be fully inspired by them, despite the fact that the composers lived in the opposite hemispheres in the pre-war period.
Trio op. 53 was written during the Rathaus family’s summer vacation in New Hampshire, in the north-eastern part of the United States, between August 1st and 25th, 1944, in a „charming setting,” as the composer himself wrote. The premiere of the work took place during a chamber music concert organized by the Polish Musicians’ Committee at the Times Hall on December 18th, 1944 in New York. The premiere was performed by: Simeon Bellison, a clarinetist of The New York Philharmonic, Boris Schwartz, professor of music at Queens College, and the composer himself – Karol Rathaus. Karol Rathaus’ innovative approach to form was revealed by including in the Trio op. 53 a sonata form in the second place after a rhapsodic form, which proves the composer’s fascination with the work of Ludwig van Beethoven – his free treatment of the sonata form, about which K. Rathaus wrote:
the three movements follow an unconventional scheme: the first part – lyrical, the middle part – rhythmic and polyphonic, and the Epoloque – reflective and melancholic, with a contrasting concertante episode [13]
Another work, which also in many of its fragments resembles the style of Karol Szymanowski is Pastorale and Danse [sic!] op. 39, dating from 1937, which was created during Rathaus’s four-year stay in London. The two-part work reveals extraordinary craftsmanship, the richness of compositional ideas and an exceptional variety of narratives. It is an example of combining the major-minor system with the atonal system. It cannot be clearly stated whether Karol Rathaus intended Pastorale and Danse for publication. Four years after the composer’s death, Gerta Rathaus, Karol Rathaus’s wife, offered the publishing of the work to the Fischer Verlag publishing house. However, she was refused, and to this day the work has not been published. [14] I believe that this colourful composition, drawing on folk motifs, reveals a wide performance field for both the violinist and the pianist. Contrasting motifs and their creative transformations show the richness of moods. The folk character of the piece was emphasized by the use of pizzicato, string harmonics and octaves in the violin part. What is also felt in this work, as in the Trio, op. 53, is the influence of Karol Szymanowski’s works.
In the year of creating Pastorale and Danse, Karol Rathaus, while staying with his family in London, decided to emigrate further. Already in 1938, with the help of his friends, the composer went to the USA. He started working as a film music composer. There seemed to be no doubt that getting a job in Hollywood was possible due to the composer’s fame in the German film community in the 1930s. Nevertheless, as an immigrant, the composer allegedly miraculously got a job at the „Hollywood Dream Factory”, which was for him and his family a ticket to a new life and an escape from Europe grasped by a terrible war. [15]
It is extremely interesting that at that time Karol Rathaus considered and developed the visions and dreams he presented in a letter to the music critic Alfred Einstein about the creation of a modern music school. This vision included an educational plan in the field of broadly understood music production. In 1938, there was no educational institution in the USA that would deal with this type of subject. Karol Rathaus saw great opportunities for the development of new musical forms, he meant various types of combinations of music as an invisible source of sound with words, with silent action or creating music that was an interpretation of dance. This confirms that the composer, when he came to America, had many plans, hopes and ideas, and was creative and open to changing musical trends. [16]
In the 1940s, he made special references to Polish culture, both in music and in non-musical activities. An example of this is e.g. the series of miniatures, which in a special way show the experiences gained by the composer while working with Franz Schrecker: Mazurka for oboe and piano (1941), Polish Polka for trumpet and piano (1941), Song of the Autumn for clarinet and piano (1941) ). The latter was recorded on our Chamber works album. It is worth noting that Karol Rathaus was fluent in Polish both in speech and writing, and he kept his Polish passport until his death.
A year after the end of World War II, in 1946, the composer created vocal pieces that will also appear on our second monographic album. I had the great pleasure of making the premiere recording of Karol Rathaus’ songs with Roxana Wardenga. They are an elaboration of the American poetry Five Moods after American Poets, op. 57 (1946) by authors such as: Elizabeth J. Coatsworth, Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, Edward Estoni Cummings, Thomas Stearns Eliot. Karol Rathaus was an erudite and extensively educated person. He created music to ambitious, extraordinary texts, which proves his broad education. [17] An example of an accurate transfer of the emotions contained in the poem by Dorothy Parker through the musical layer is the song Frustration, where the composer used various articulations and changes of register as well as very quick transitions between them. The series is intended for soprano and piano. Additionally, it was also transposed by the composer so that it could be performed by a lower voice.
In the field of chamber concert works, three years after composing the song cycle, Dedication and Allegro op. 64 (1949) – Hommage à Chopin for violin and piano comes into being. The first part, Dedication, is subtitled Hommage à Chopin and sounds as if it came from Chopin’s piano pieces. However, the harmonically distant chords contained in the introduction slightly oppositely affect the way the performer presents a romantic phrase.
On the other hand, in the second part, Allegro, the violin part, through its rhythmic layer, characteristic accentuation and its improvisational character, brings to mind elements of jazz.
The next piece to be released on The Karol Rathaus Ensemble album is the Rapsodia Notturna op. 66 for cello and piano, dedicated to the cellist Raja Garbowska, who premiered the piece. The rhapsody was written in June 1950 and was released in 1968. The unusual nature of Rapsodia Notturna lies in the composer’s use of a twelve-note series, in the creation of which Rathaus did not follow strict rules in the processing of musical material. The processing of the series is completely random.
Without a doubt, it can be said that once again there is a work that does not match the composition of the previous ones in its genre. Rapsodia Notturna is characterized by formal unity and compositional coherence. Boosey & Hawkes Publishing also released Carl Ebert’s transcription for viola and piano, suggested by the composer himself. The musical fragment indicated below is probably my favorite, as it contains some elements of Polish folk music.
Other chamber works that were written in the American period, but were not included in the Chamber works album, comprise Music for Strings op. 49, which can be situated between a chamber and orchestral work. It was published by Boosey & Hawkes in 1963. The Karol Rathaus Archives contain sketches of the manuscript of the Piano Quintet, Op. 63 – unfortunately the whole work has not been preserved. Another work from the American period is Tower Music for two trumpets and three trombones, created in 1950 as a combination of the influences of Renaissance music and „American Brass”. Two string quartets, 4th and 5th op. 59, came into being in America as well. The fifth string quartet was published in 1956, only after the composer’s death, by Verlag bon Caro Fischer. The String Quartet No. 5, Op. 72 was written by Rathaus shortly before his death and is his last chamber work. It is considered the most dramatic chamber piece from the American period in terms of form and expression. [18] Individual sketches that confirm the composer’s method of composing have survived from the composer’s stay in the USA. It turns out that during this period the creative work of Karol Rathaus was associated with a great deal of spontaneity. First, a few notes were made about the musical themes, then a version that (if it was not final) was very close to it. No sketches have survived from the European period to show how Rathaus worked. Only the letter of May 23rd, 1926 proves that Rathaus’s composing system from the 20s/30s looked quite different than the composer’s working system in the USA. In Berlin, he composed at the piano and immediately transferred the work to the score, and then made a lot of corrections to it. [19] Yet, a letter to Hans Hansheimer from 1930 confirms that Rathaus did not want to stick rigidly to any strict compositional systems and to follow formal patterns. The intuitive way of composing allowed him not to limit his creativity and openness in creating. It is worth mentioning that in the 1920s the composer identified himself much more with his works, and also took into consideration his audience much more by reacting to the reviews. [20] In his self-report, Karol Rathaus asks himself philosophical questions as to whether the effect aimed at success is really important in his creative life. The composer admitted to himself that the most important are personal, deep ideas resulting from a sincere attitude towards himself as a creator. Potential success comes second. [21]
When I undertook the recording of the second album, which featured the above-mentioned songs from the 1920s and 1950s and were varied in terms of the cast, I was looking for a common denominator for them, but I encountered huge difficulties. This confirmed the assumptions that there are hardly any compositional similarities in the sound organization of all works by Karol Rathaus. Taking into account the variety of his works, it can certainly be stated [1] [22] that Karol Rathaus was extremely versatile in terms of his ability to compose works of very different genres simultaneously. The composer’s intuitive and emotional creative process appeared in momentary states of mind, under the influence of currently experienced events. It must be admitted that this way of creating allows the artist to make a subjective interpretation. Also for us – the Karol Rathaus Ensemble, the composer, through his individual work, opened the way to an emotional, spontaneous and improvisational approach to the interpretation of classical works.
[1] Martin Schȕssler, „Karol Rathaus – An American Composer of Polish Origin…”;The Development of an Americanized View of Rathaus and its Conseguences for the Reception of His Music, “in: Polish Music Journal, Vol.6,
No.1, 2003, https://polishmusic.usc.edu/research/publications/polish-music-journal/vol6no1/karol-rathaus
[2] Boris Schwarz, „Karol Rathaus”, The Musical Quarterly, Vol.41, No.4 (Oct.1955), p.492
[3] „Karol Rathaus as viewed through his letters”, niedatowany dokument Word, Karol Rathaus Archives, Benjamin
Rosenthal Library, City University of New York
[4] Boris Schwarz, „Karol Rathaus”…op. cit, s.483
[5] List Karol Rathausa z 15.5.1929 r do Universal Edition, Karol Rathaus Archive: „Das quintett, dessen Aufnahme Dr
Kalmus ęwegen Überbördung nicht annehmen konnte, hat eine ebenso grosse vie vorzũgliche Presse, zahlreiche
Auffȕhrungen in Konzert und Rundfunk stehen bevor”
[6] Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, Między Schreckerem a Schönbergiem – z zagadnień twórczości Karola Rathausa, „Muzyka” 2007, number 3, p. 112
[7] Karol Rathaus; Jazzdȁmmerung?, niedatowany maszynopis, powstały po 1925 roku, w: Rathaus Archives
[8] „Karol Rathaus as viewed through his letters”, op. cit
[9] Karol Rathaus; Jazzdȁmmerung?…
[10] Karol Rathaus, fragment eseju „Jazzdȁmmerung?”: „[…]Eine richtige Vorstellung vom Jazz haben wir erst von den negern bekommen. Chocolate Kiddies , die Revuen Josephine Baker’s und Black Peoplebrachten uns in den Rand der Quelle. Hier erreichte der Jazz eine Vollendung, deren Ursachen in tiefen Verwurzeltsein liegen. Die gutturalen Laute der Negersanger – und Sangerinnen, die melancholie der Urheimet (destilliert durch den naiven neuen christlichen Glauben und beeinflust von Missiongeist, wirkten sich zum ersten Male aus zu einer Kunst, deren ungeheure Tiefe uns zum kunstlereischen Erlebnis wurde.[…] Da wir nun elso (also) den Jazz kennen, da er sieh (sich) im Laufe von ca.12 Jahren den Boden in der ganzen zivilisierten Welt eroberte, da er nun wiederspruehlos (widerspruchslos) getanzt und gesungen wird und als Volksmusik auch in die ernste Kunst. Eigung gefunden hat, da wir alle geheimnisse seiner Instrumentation abgeleiseht haben und sie frei verwenden koennen(…)”
[11] Karol Rathaus, fragment noty programowej: „[…] the work has four movements. In the first movement the principle of the Sonata Allegro form is used in a free but disciplined way. […] but its continuity grows from the thematic material and does not follow any reconceived pattern. The second movement includes an exchange of varied ideas between the three instruments, a contrasting trio and a short return and coda. A free dialogue between the instruments distinguishes the third movement, which is expressive in character, evocative, intense and – restrained. The last movement starts with and extended introduction, which is later integrated in the pattern of a general elaboration. Animated allegro vivace follows, rhythmically stressed, interplay of ideas and oscillation mood. The coda broadens to a pesante ending”.
[12] Zofia Helman, Neoklasycyzm w muzyce polskiej XX wieku, Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Kraków 1985, p. 52
[13] Karol Rathaus, fragment noty programowej:„Its three movements follow an unorthodox pattern: the lyrical first movement, the rhythmical and polyphonic Middle movement and the Epilogue of a reflective and pensive character, which is animated and contrasted by a concertante episode”
[14] Martin Schȕssler, Karol Rathaus, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 289
[15] Martin Schȕssler, Karol Rathaus, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 329
[16] List Karola Rathausa do Alfreda Einsteina z 14.2.1938 roku, Karol Rathaus Archive
[17] Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, „Karol Rathaus i Queens College w Nowym Jorku”, w :„American Dream”. Polscy twórcy za oceanem, red. B. Bolesławska-Lewandowska, J.Guzy-`Pasiak, Warszawa 2020, p.11-32
[18] Martin Schȕssler, Karol Rathaus, op. cit., p. 361
[19] Karol Rathaus’s Letter to Universal Edition from 23.05.1926y, Karol Rathaus Archives
[20]Karol Rathaus’s Letter to Hans Hansheimeraz 30.11.1930y, Karol Rathaus Archives
[21] Karol Rathaus; Autoreferat, unadded typescript, written after 1925, w: Rathaus Archives
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