The Third Programme and Hans Pfitzner

One of the brightest of the Third Programme's recent efforts was the presentation of a little festival of Pfitzner's music. “Little,” perhaps, may be not quite the right word for however short a series of programmes which included the whole of Palestrina (1912–1915), but it must be remembered that Pfitzner wrote four other operas besides this celebrated chef-d'oeuvre—Der arme Heinrich (1891–93), Die Rose vom Liebesgarten (1897–1900), Das Christelflein (1906, revised 1917), and Das Herz (1930–31). The B.B.C. gave us no glimpse of these other operas, although round about Christmas of each year one of their regional orchestras undertakes the overture to Das Christelflein as an appropriately seasonal piece. For this festival occasion, the B.B.C, in addition to Palestrina, threw in a song recital and a performance of Pfitzner's last chamber work, the Sextet (Op. 55/1945) for piano, violin, viola, cello, double-bass and clarinet. These two latter items may have been well-intentioned choices, but, notwithstanding, they were extremely ill chosen. The Third Programme—as, alas, so often—was either wrongly advised, or simply did not have any (skilled) advice to call upon. For instance, the six songs, ably performed by Mary Jarred, belonged to Pfitzner's earliest period—the latest “Lied”" was Sonst (Op. 15, no. 4), composed in 1904, and most of the other songs were written in the 1880's or 90's. But Pfitzner's output of “Lieder” extends to the 1930's and up to Op. 41—and his maturest and best songs are to be found in the years which the B.B.C. did not remotely approach! Incidentally, no opus numbers were printed in the Radio Times or announced over the air, so that as far as the uninformed listener was concerned he was hearing a “representative” selection of Pfitzner's “Lieder”; in fact, of course, he was hearing nothing of the kind.