Weinberger: Wallenstein (Live)

In 1927 the Czech composer Jaromír Weinberger celebrated a sensational success with Schwanda the Bagpiper. Then, in 1938, one year after the premiere of Wallenstein in Vienna, Weinberger had to flee from the Nazis. He did not have much success in the United States, suffered while in exile, and took his own life in 1967. Wallenstein was completely forgotten, certainly also because of the great challenges posed by its performance. Cornelius Meister, the principal conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, writes, “Along with a large chorus and orchestra, there are numerous stage musicians who are divided into three groups, even so as to include table music with a harpsichord, a large military band, and trumpets. Weinberger has a different style featured in each of the six scenes, and the absolutely indescribable manifoldness extends from the operetta, atonality, and music of folk character to romantically ramified counterpoint, so that one almost has the impression that several composers are at work.” The opera is based on Friedrich Schiller’s trilogy of the same name on the subject of the downfall of the famous General Wallenstein during the Thirty Years’ War.