Geschenktipps (nicht nur) zu Weihnachten

Jonathan Kwan, Nottingham

Miklos Banffy: The Transylvanian Trilogy (Everyman's Library/Knopf, 2013).
Now appearing in a handsome new edition, Banffy's novel follows the story of Balint, a marginal Hungarian member of the high aristocracy, in the years immediately preceding WWI. On one level it has the elements of a typical expansive nineteenth century novel - an unhappy love affair; a cruel husband; a wayward, musically-inclined, doomed relative; meaningless duels; excessive gambling; luxurious balls; extravagant shooting weekends; an incident with a pearl necklace; amongst many such characters and events. Yet on another level, Banffy, who stood at the centre of the aristocratic elite, presents an incisive cross section of Hungarian and Transylvanian politics and society on the eve of the war. He portrays the parliamentary strife around 1905-6, the rise of the co-operative movement and the many layers of social life in Budapest and the provinces. In the final chapter Balint revisits his childhood haunts in Transylvania and reflects with bitterness on his own class and on general responsibility for the upcoming war. Banffy finished the book in his ancestral palace just months before it would be destroyed in 1940.

Gustav Gratz: Augenzeuge dreier Epochen. Die Memoiren des ungarischen Aussenministers Gustav Gratz 1875-1945 (Oldenbourg, 2009).
Almost an exact contemporary of Banffy, Gustav Gratz led a very different life. The son of a Protestant Priest, Gratz was brought up primarily speaking German, though he was also completely fluent in Hungarian. A shy, bookish youth, Gratz was educated in Upper Hungary (present-day Slovakia), Budapest and Transylvania. At gymnasium in Transylvania he was a friend of the future Prime Minister of Romania, Alexander Vajda-Voivod. In Budapest he participated in the social reform movement, which contained many future Hungarian intellectuals and politicians. Gratz was eventually elected to parliament as a candidate of the German-speaking Transylvanian Saxons (one of his unsuccessful campaigns had been against Banffy). Making his way up the ladder through sheer hard work and talent, Gratz was in Vienna at the end of WWI - first in the Foreign Ministry then the Finance Ministry. There are evocative scenes of Emperor Karl desperately forming successive governments in an attempt to save the Monarchy. In the inter-war years Gratz was Hungarian Foreign Minister in the early period (Banffy was his successor) and then a cultural leader for the German-speaking minority. This did not prevent him being sent to Mauthausen concentration camp in 1944 as an opponent of the Nazis. Released shortly afterwards, he made his way back to Budapest were he died in 1946. Gratz's life, with its intertwined loyalties, languages and ideas, exemplifies a Central European intellectual politician caught up in extraordinary, tumultuous events.

Patrick Leigh Fermor: A Time of Gifts (John Murray, 1977), Between the Woods and Water (John Murray, 1986) and The Broken Road (John Murray, 2013).
Christmas in Germany, 1933. For Patrick Leigh Fermor, who was staying at a hospitable Gasthof in Bingen on the Rhine, it was 'the time of gifts'. He was at the beginning of an epic journey on foot across Europe from Holland to Constantinople, immortalized in the three volumes published more than 40 years afterwards. The trilogy captures the wonder and optimism of an impressionable, earnest 18 year old. It is also a Proustian evocation of pre-WWII Central Europe mixed with considered reflections on memory, languages, cultures and people. Fermor's famously lush, ornate prose seamlessly knits seemingly incongruous elements and perspectives together. The chance encounters and transformative experiences of Fermor's trip such as unexpected hospitality, learned conversations, simple kindness, snatched fragments of songs, basic phrases in a host of new languages dominate his account. Events such as the Berlin Reichstag fire, Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss's murder and the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia only form background presences to a remarkable, life-changing Wanderjahr. While Old Europe was on the verge of collapse, Fermor stood on the cusp of maturity. The final volume, long awaited, appeared shortly after Fermor's death at the age of 96 in 2011.

Christian Gerhaher: Ferne Geliebte (CD, Sony, 2012).
Composed in April 1816, Beethoven's song cycle is at the very heart of the lieder repertoire. Gerhaher and his accompanist Gerald Huber approach the cycle in a straightforward, private manner. The results are overwhelming. There are no exaggerated interpretative points or highlighting, thus details, nuances and transitions emerge naturally and clearly. The impression is not of a public performance but an intimate confession to a close friend. The simplicity of the final song is disarming and moving:

Nimm sie hin den, diese Lieder,
Die ich die, Geliebte, sang,
Singe sie dann abends wieder ...

This is followed by the Schoenberg cycle 'The Book of the Hanging Gardens', also essentially quiet and contemplative, though, more dreamlike, hallucinatory, fleeting. Three Haydn Lieder follow providing some repose between the Schoenberg and Alban Berg's 'Fünf Orchesterlieder' (in piano and voice version). The recital ends as it began - with Beethoven. Gerhaher's interpretation of Adelaide is extroverted and emphatic. Throughout Gerhaher and Huber display purity and beauty of tone.

Angelika Kirchschlager: Wiener-Lieder aus den Kremser Alben (ORF, 1998).
Before she conquered the opera houses and recital halls around the world, Angelika Kirchschlager recorded these Viennese songs as part of a large ORF project. The composer Eduard Kremser had collected many old Viennese songs in the early twentieth century - a time of interest in folk music throughout Central Europe. Accompanied by Die Philharmonia Schrammeln, the songs on this CD are nearly all in Wiener Dialekt and mostly cover everyday experiences in a young girl's life. Many are from the early nineteenth century and the period of Biedermeier Vienna. Titles such as 'Die Wäschertonerl vom Himmelpfortgrund' or 'I bin a Madl von einer eigenen Rass'' evoke a time of daily manual work, occasional music evenings, young love and decisive life choices. The choice of a Schrammel quartet as accompanists, rather than piano, sets an informal tone and if it were not for the outstanding voice of Kirchschlager, one could imagine being in a Heuriger on the outskirts of Vienna. Ein Stück vom alten Wien.