Steven Isserlis

“Fruhling? As in ‘Spring’? No, I’ve never heard of him.’ How many times, I wonder, have I heard that reply in answer to my eager question to virtually anyone I have met over the past few years who might know anything whatsoever about late 19th/ early 20th century Vienna? On the rare occasions on which someone has been able at least to point me in a hopeful direction, my gratitude has been enthusiastic to the point of embarrassment. So what is so special about Carl Fruhling?

For me, the story started several years ago when an amateur clarinettist friend, Jim Breed, introduced me to Fruhling’s clarinet trio. Having been somewhat underwhelmed by my introductions to the trios of Zemlinsky, d’Indy and others, I perked up immediately when we read through the Fruhling – I loved it! I loved the unpretentious warmth, the humour, the gentle charm of his style. I wanted to know more about the composer, but Jim said that, apart from a very short entry in an American dictionary, he had been unable to find anything written about the man; poor Fruhling wasn’t even in Grove’s Dictionary. I can’t say that this marked a turning-point in my life, but I was intrigued. I introduced the trio to some musician friends, who were mighty impressed; we even made a BBC recording of it. I then took the trio to a chamber music festival in Finland, and tried it through there, with a musician who played it so badly that it sounded boring, and then refused to perform it, because it was boring! (It is alarming how often wonderful lesser-known works are written off for that reason).

So I sulked for a bit until, some time later, I became friends with Michael Collins , and then Stephen Hough; I introduced the piece to them (separately) and both waxed lyrical over its charms. Eventually, the three of us performed it together, and then recorded it for BMG/RCA. The rest is hysteria. Well, not exactly; but it did bring Fruhling a little bit of much-overdue praise and recognition. However – he deserves more!

Sometime before we recorded the trio, I started to become mildly obsessed by the Fruhling mystery. Who was he? What was he like?

And what else had he composed? (The fact that the trio was described as opus 40 gave a delicate hint that there might be, or have been, at least 39 other works). To my joy, I found a copy of his Piano Quintet in a library in Hanover, as well as some little operatic paraphrases for piano. Also, I found some proper information about him in an article in the MGG, the great German encyclopedia of music. It gave a very brief biography, saying that Fruhling had been best-known as a chamber-music pianist , collaborating with the likes of Hubermann, Slezak and Sarasate; there was also a list of well over a hundred of his works. But where were they? And why did no- one now remember anything about a man who had died as recently as 1937? I started nagging any friend who was going to Vienna, giving them no peace until they promised to find out whatever they could about Mr. Spring. Jonathan del Mar, commuting regularly to Vienna to research his Beethoven edition, found Fruhling’s 1895 address, and arranged for me to be sent two pictures of the mystery- man – one a photo of Fruhling as a young man, another a rather sad caricature of him in old age. Another of the long-suffering unfortunates who had to endure my whining was Felicity Lott, who inadvertently stumbled across a major reason for his neglect. She dutifully enquired whether they might have any information at the Austrian Radio station where she was recording; they pulled out a file – and , to everybody’s embarrassment, discovered a large ‘J’ scrawled over it! So now we knew that Fruhling had been Jewish – and as such had obviously been neglected in the years after his death. (The article in MGG had mentioned that he had died in poverty).

Having discovered that, I assumed that all his lost works (most of which appeared to have been unpublished) had either been destroyed by the Nazis, or had perished in the war. But, before giving up, I spoke to my friend Claus-Christian Schuster, a wonderful pianist from Vienna, who plays in the Altenberg piano trio. He is one of the most depressing people I know. Mention any composer, author or artist to him, and he will talk so knowledgeably about any aspect of their life or work, that one ends up (at least, I end up) feeling that the best place to live is under the nearest stone. Of course, he knew about Fruhling – but, having had his interest fired, he made sure that before too much time had elapsed, he had assumed the rather poorly-paid position of world’s leading Fruhling expert. It was Christian (as he is known) who made the important discovery that the MGG article had been written after the war, in the 50s – implying strongly that Fruhling’s works had still been around then. He also discovered where Fruhling had lived , where he had been buried, and a lot of other information that I could never have found myself. (Especially since, to my constant annoyance, I am unable to speak German; I keep hoping that one day I will wake up speaking it fluently – but so far, it hasn’t happened).

When I was playing in Vienna recently, I spent most of my time (when I should have been practising) traipsing around libraries there with Christian, playing Herr Dr. Watson to his Sherlock von Holmes; he showed me the various and tantalising documents that he had found. These included a CV in Fruhling’s own hand, stating that he had been born in Vienna. This contradicted the article in MGG , and a couple of other small articles, that gave his birthplace as Lemberg (now Lvov, in the Ukraine). Apparently, Fruhling had to pretend that he had been born in Vienna to cover up the fact that he was Jewish, Lemberg being a largely Jewish town. (He had even converted to Christianity, Mahler-style, in 1907 – though not to Catholicism, the accepted religion in Austria, but to Protestantism.) The CV as a whole, dating from 1929, was rather pathetic; he had obviously found little recognition as a composer, but was trying desperately to make as much as he possibly could out of the few performances of his works that had been given. We also saw a poignant series of letters from him to a choral conductor, practically begging him – unsuccessfully, it would seem – to perform one of his works.

Most important of all , though, was a small selection of Fruhling’s works that I had never seen before. There were some early songs, a Fantasie for flute, an orchestral ballet-suite in full score, and another in piano score – sleeping beauties ! (I have also since then got hold of the manuscript of a piano quartet, which looks highly promising). As I pen these not-particularly-immortal words, I am waiting impatiently to hear all these pieces played, having been mercilessly hounding any friend unlucky enough to be in a position to perform one of them. But a vast treasure of other works – including such fascinating-sounding potential gems as ‘Gesang Buddhas’ for baritone and winds, ‘Der Tod des Pharao’, for speaker, women’s choir and orchestra, a piano concerto and a cello sonata – MAY be sitting somewhere gathering dust, just waiting to be rediscovered . Who knows? My hope is that one day, the performances that we are giving of his music may come to the notice of (say) Marmaduke Fruhling, who will suddenly remember a pile of manuscripts that have been in his attic for the last fifty years or so…