# In Praise of Frank Martin (1890-1974)



## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in "The Third Man" had this to say about Switzerland:

"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Whoa, not so fast , Orson, you're forgetting Swiss composer Frank Martin, one of the greatest 20th century composers - and one of the most shamefully neglected. Though thoroughly modern in sound, his music is still enjoyable and and accessible. Here's a Greatest Hits sampler. Enjoy - and don't forget to explore the works in their entirety.





















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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)




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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)




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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I always lilked excerpts from Der Sturm (an opera of The Tempest), but when I listen to the whole thing its very atmospheric language gets monotonous. He's a good composer nonetheless.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

His Concerto for 7 Winds, stgs, perc is really excellent.....quite the showpiece, but also a good solid work....Martinon/CSO is a classic rendition...


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

Sechs Monologe aus _Jedermann_ (1943/49)
:: Fischer-Dieskau, Martin/BPO [DG '63]

Hugo von Hofmannsthal adapted the medieval English morality play _The Somonyng of Everyman_ (or simply _Everyman_) for his theatrical märchen (~fairy tale) _Jedermann_ of 1911. As it goes, God sends Death as an administrator of justice to confront the representative rich man, Everyman, with the Record of His Deeds. Death arrives amid an opulent feast in wealthy surroundings and puts to Everyman the awkward question: "What shall speak for him before the face of God?" What ensues is Everyman's accountability to God and quest for salvation.

Rather than make an opera out of the play, as was his original intent, Martin culled six monologues [Martin's term, not Hofmannsthal's] that portray the psychological and religious "development of the main character, starting with his terrible fear of death and extending to his complete acceptance in the conviction of forgiveness." It's a dark, angst-ridden work of cumulative impact that provides no comfort, no relief, no place to hide, and it's written in a tonally expanded (chromatic), tense, often eerie, dissonantly declamatory idiom.






* * *

Mass for double choir (1922/26)
:: Otto/Vokalensemble Frankfurt [Bayer '89]

Martin's early Mass has neo-Renaissance and neo-Bach tendencies, but there are no archaic evocations (as in Vaughan Williams's Mass in G minor) and it's a bit too modern-sounding for the "neo" label to fully stick. The work has a unique/"one-off" vibe about it on the whole, but the writing does occasionally make me think of Poulenc's a capella choral works of the '30s and '40s, only grittier and more gravely earnest; the last Osanna could fit in _Figure humaine_, for example.

I couldn't find a stream/video of my favorite recording, but here's a popular alternative from Reuss/RIAS-Kammerchor:


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Perhaps every decade we get away from the 20th Century more listenable composers like Martin will become more popular. After all, it goes into the mean or average of what music has meant throughout the millennia.


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

I think Martin was _always_ listenable, but people read things like "Martin adapted some elements of the 12 Tone System but never abandoned tonality" and wrongly assume there must be something scary about the music. To be fair, I've had many composers suggested to me who supposedly managed to adapt the 12 Tone System in such a way that yielded tuneful and attractive music, but I'm usually not satisfied with the results. For example, some claim Berg's music is beautiful, but frankly I've never personally found it so, even after multiple hearings. To my ears, Varese's Density 21.5 does have a certain strange tunefulness to it, but that's a very short piece and an exception for me. I've tried listening to Dutilleux (a Frenchman from the generation after Martin) as well, but thus far not his music to my liking either. However, as my music samples above prove prove, Martin's could be very tuneful and beautiful sounding (even to a novice) while still being a very original and intense composer. It doesn't help that "Frank Martin" is a rather bland-sounding name and Switzerland is hardly considered a bastion of Classical music. This might factor into his neglect as well.


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