Paul Hindemith: Die junge Magd, Op. 23/2; Ernst Toch: Die chinesische Flöte, Op. 29

1	Die Junge Magd, song cycl
2	Die Junge Magd, song cycl
3	Die Junge Magd, song cycl
4	Die Junge Magd, song cycl
5	Die Junge Magd, song cycl
6	Die Junge Magd, song cycl
7	The Chinese Flute, for ch
8	The Chinese Flute, for ch
9	The Chinese Flute, for ch
10	Work(s): Interview with R
11	Work(s): Interview with E
Paul Hindemith: Die junge Magd, Op. 23/2; Ernst Toch: Die chinesische Flöte, Op. 29
1.	Die Junge Magd, song cycle for alto, flute, clarinet & string quartet, Op. 23b 19:51
	Composed by Paul Hindemith
	Performed by Dresden Staatskapelle and Ruth Lange
	Conducted by Joseph Keilberth
2.	The Chinese Flute, for chamber orchestra, Op. 29 23:35
	Composed by Ernst Toch
	Performed by Dresden Staatskapelle, Elfriede Trötschel and Arno Birr
	Conducted by Hans Löwlein
3.	Work(s): Interview with Ruth Lange from the 'Zu Gast bei Pr 3:24
	Composed by Spoken Word
	Performed by Ruth Lange
4.	Work(s): Interview with Elfride Trötschel from a live RIAS 7:42
	Composed by Spoken Word
	Performed by Elfriede Trötschel

All Music Guide

The 26th installment in Profil's Edition Staatskapelle Dresden series of first-time issues of mostly vintage radio broadcast material features two then-contemporary German composers who had fled the Nazi regime in the early '30s in performances immediate to the postwar period. Paul Hindemith, who had served in the German Army during World War I, fled Germany in 1937 and settled in the U.S. in 1940, becoming an American citizen and teaching at Yale. However, Hindemith did find his way back to Europe in the 1950s, dying in Frankfurt in 1963; Ernst Toch, the other composer featured here, fled in 1933 and ultimately settled in Los Angeles; he was never to return to Europe, and at the end of his life believed himself "the most thoroughly forgotten composer in the world." Several other aspects link the two works on this disc to one another; both Hindemith's "Die junge magdm, Op. 23/2," and Toch's "Die chinesische Flöte, Op. 29," were written in 1922 and both are the semi-legitimate progeny of Gustav Mahler's song cycle "Das Lied von der Erde" (1908). Like the Mahler, these are orchestral song cycles set to German transliterations of Chinese texts; Toch's "Die chinesische Flöte" even uses the same source volume by Hans Bethge that Mahler worked from.

Contralto Ruth Lange, also heard in the fine recording of Janácek's "Káta Kabanová" stemming from this same Profil series, provides the solo voice in Hindemith's "Die junge magd" in this 1948 recording. This is one of Hindemith's most obscure creations, and upon hearing it you'd almost swear it wasn't Hindemith; it's low-key and sentimental in tone and warmly post-romantic in style and only occasionally even dissonant. The Toch is made of tougher stuff; recorded in 1949 with soprano Elfride Trötschel as soloist, it is couched in an impressionistic language that contrasts atonality with modality and is visionary without being confrontational. The recordings are very good for the era, made onto early magnetic tapes that have been well cared for; although there is a little flutter detectable here and there, it is not distracting. Lange sings with transparency and beauty, whereas Trötschel emphasizes energy and spirit, characteristics that remain apparent in the short interview excerpts included with both singers at the end of the disc. These are both very obscure works by major figures, and this appears to be the only recording of the Toch; fans of Mahler's lied and of Weimar-period German music will find this no doubt an illuminating and enjoyable historical release. Uncle Dave Lewis