An artist drama & a character tragedy

As pragmatic, sober, relaxed, when he wanted to be, even affable, occasionally coarse, but then again conciliatory as Richard Strauss was, Hans Pfitzner came across as fussy, petty, unyielding, unsympathetic, inflexible, despondent and frustrated. His late-romantic image of a messianic artistry that receives its inspiration from the highest authority also exuded something strangely obsessive and outdated. The two contemporaries could not have been more different.

At first, he, the five years younger, seemed to clearly outstrip his rival Strauss in terms of reputation and influence and was regarded as the front man of the musical elite. The fact that at the beginning of the 20th century he was at times also director of the Strasbourg Opera and the city's conservatory, and that Gustav Mahler not only put his opera Die Rose vom Liebesgarten on the program at the Vienna Court Opera as early as 1905, but also conducted it personally, exemplifies the special reputation Pfitzner enjoyed at the time. But the tide turned - Strauss' star began to shine ever brighter, after the end of the First World War Pfitzner also lost his Strasbourg conducting duties and the development of music clearly passed him by. So it may well be that his frustration is at least partly due to his biography. But his ranting and anti-Semitic outbursts against modernism, his ingratiation with the National Socialists (who, however, supported him far less than he had hoped) and the obscure additional shift to the right after 1945 - including his openly flaunted affinity with Hans Frank, the National Socialist "Butcher of Poland" - cannot simply be explained and minimized by personal disappointments.

Nevertheless, many - even Arnold Schoenberg, who had been attacked by Pfitzner in the strongest terms - later came to his defense because of his work. Last but not least, the group of admirers of Pfitzner's central work Palestrina includes such illustrious names as the aforementioned Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg, but also such greats as Thomas Mann, Bruno Walter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Hans Hotter and Christian Thielemann. Bruno Walter, the conductor of the premiere, literally spoke of a "peak in the musical creativity of our era". The fact that this opera is now so rarely found on repertoires around the world has to do with the casting and scheduling challenges: a four-hour work with 39 (!) solo roles plus chorus and large orchestra must first be fitted into the daily rehearsal process. Pfitzner's lack of practical experience is also evident in this respect, which stands in the way of the continuation of his own creations.

The plot itself fits in with the aforementioned highly romantic understanding of the world of the composer - who in this case was also his own librettist: the central theme is the mystery of artistic inspiration. As a prerequisite for this, the retreat of the creatively active person into his own inner world is described here, which stands in sharp contrast to the noisy hustle and bustle of external reality. The legend of the Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina (the Palestrina refers to his origins in the small Italian town of the same name) is told against the backdrop of the Council of Tridentine. In a creative ecstasy, he creates a masterpiece (the Missa Papae Marcelli, which is not mentioned here by name) with which he saves an entire musical tradition from destruction. From a historical point of view, little can be taken at face value, because apart from the people involved, little actually happened as described here - but it is no coincidence that Pfitzner calls the piece a "musical legend".

After the death of his wife, the composer Palestrina lost all inspiration and, according to his pupil Silla, missed out on the new musical style from Florence. Cardinal Carlo Borromeo nevertheless sought him out to commission him to compose a mass to convince the Pope to retain polyphony in the church. Palestrina refuses, but a nocturnal vision of deceased composers and angelic voices, including that of his wife, inspires him to compose. In the morning, his son Ighino finds the sheet music and takes it.

At the Tridentine Council, the parties clash again and Borromeo puts them off with regard to the mass. In order to save his father, who was thrown into prison, Ighino gives the composition to the college. The mass is performed in the papal chapel and deeply impresses the Pope. Palestrina is released and the Pope honors him personally. In the end, Palestrina is left alone and realizes that his life's work is complete.