Helgoland (Bruckner)


Helgoland, WAB 71, is a secular, patriotic cantata for male choir and orchestra, composed by Anton Bruckner in 1893. Since Bruckner did not complete the 9th symphony, Helgoland is his last complete work.

History

One year earlier, Bruckner had already composed another, shorter patriotic work, Der deutsche Gesang, that was premiered at the First German Academic Song Festival in Salzburg in June 1892.
Helgoland was composed in April 1893 for the Men's Choir of Vienna to celebrate its 50th birthday. The text was written by August Silberstein, who had already provided poems set to music by Bruckner.
The setting was a case of interest, as the Frisian island of Heligoland had just been given to Germany in 1890 by Great Britain. Helgoland was conducted on 8 October 1893 by the Men's Choir of Vienna and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Eduard Kremser's baton in the Winterreitschule of the Hofburg Palace.
Bruckner legated the manuscript to the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. The work was first published as vocal and piano reduction score by Cyrill Hynais in 1893. The vocal and orchestral score was posthumously issued by Doblinger, Vienna in 1899. It is put in Band XXII/2 No. 8 of the Gesamtausgabe.

Text

The text from August Silberstein's Mein Herz in Liedern focuses on the Saxon people of the island who are threatened by the invasion of the Romans, but divine intervention saves them:

Setting

The 317-bar long composition in G minor, scored for [TTBB|] male choir and orchestra, is set as a three-part sonata form with coda.
The piece is full of strength and enthusiasm, and carries the mark of Wagner's influence. The orchestral introduction depicts already the atmosphere of storm and fate, which hangs over the text. The first part depicts the approach of the enemies and the announcement of the prayer, the mid-part depicts the invocation of the deity, and the third part depicts the storm and the sinking of the enemies. The coda on the last verse "O Herrgott, dich preiset frei Helgoland!, with a cymbal crash near the end, is a hymn to the deity.
Duration: about 13 minutes.

Discography

Helgoland is seldom played presumably because of the text, a poem with German patriotic content, but also the high requirements, i.e., a symphonic orchestra and a professional men's choir.
Fritz Oeser made an adaptation of the work for mixed choir and orchestra, and put on it a new text „Dröhne, du Donner“, so that the work would be performed more often. However, no recording of this adaptation is available as yet.
Many noted Brucknerian conductors have neglected to record the work, although Daniel Barenboim has done it twice, at the time of his playing the symphonies of Bruckner with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
There are four commercial recordings of the work:
;Note: A not-issued recording by Takashi Asahina can be heard on John Berky's website: . The December, 2022 Download of the Month on the site was the 1993 out-of-print recording of the work by Wyn Morris. Other not-issued recordings by among others, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and Neeme Järvi are stored in the Bruckner Archive.

Transcription for organ (Martin Bernhard)

  • Kevin M. Clarke, Bruckner, Bicentennial Houston CD – CD BSA-007