Hildegard Stradal
Hildegard Stradal (5 May 1864 – 7 August 1948) was an Austrian mezzo-soprano, writer, and translator.
Contents
Biography
Hildegard Zweigelt was born in Vienna as the only child of the music teacher Josef Moritz Zweigelt (1838–1906) and his wife Franziska (née Nitsch). From the age of five, her father taught the highly musical daughter the piano. She received vocal training from the singing teacher and soprano Caroline Pruckner in Vienna, who regularly gave concerts with her pupils.
On April 30, 1888, she married the pianist and Liszt student August Stradal (1860–1930) in the Viennese Augustinian Church. Not without misgivings Hildegard Stradal consented to the marriage: "...we had no doubt that the artist suffers in some way a loss of free development through marriage, especially the woman." In the course of their 42 years of marriage she was constantly concerned about her husband's musical career and his unstable health. The marriage remained childless.
From about 1889 to 1915, the Stradals traveled to the summer resort at Lake Chiemsee from May to October. At first they lived in the villa of Franz Stradal, their father-in-law, on Fraueninsel, later in Prien. In 1917, they sold the Prien villa in order to avoid a war-related confiscation as foreigners.
From 1916 until the end of the World War I, Hildegard Stradal worked under Baroness Spitzmüller in the Red Cross office in Vienna. For financial reasons, the main residence in Vienna also had to be given up. The Stradals moved to Schönlinde (today Krásná Lípa, Czech Republic), where she had inherited the house of her deceased aunt. Once again, already very old, Hildegard Stradal had to change residence. In the Czech Republic she fell victim to the wave of expulsions at the end of the World War II. She was one of the almost 35,000 refugees and displaced persons who came to Halle and the surrounding area from 1945 to 1949. In 1948, she died in the Beesener Straße 15 retirement home in Halle (Saale).
Career as a singer
The Stradals undertook joint concert tours that took them all over Europe. Munich, Paris, London, Dresden, Leipzig, Hamburg, Budapest, Brussels were the stations of their lively concert activity, until with the outbreak of the Great War "the gate slammed shut, which for an incalculable time closed the paths to joy, peace, creativity and all the beauty of this world from mankind." The Stradals were also active in the world of music.
Hildegard Stradal's first appearance as a concert performer was very well received: "Ms. Stradal, a graceful, girlish appearance with rapturous doe eyes, is justly celebrated in Viennese social circles because of her extraordinary talent as a lied singer," the Wiener Salonblatt reported on April 7, 1889. "At the end of the concert, the podium resembled a flower garden in which I stood intimidated and almost ashamed," she herself reported. Recitals were extremely popular with audiences around 1900. In the Bösendorfer Hall, they even exceeded the number of piano recitals.[1] Even later, Hildegard Stradal's concerts as a Lieder singer, usually accompanied by August Stradal, were favorably reviewed by the press.
Several of Hildegard Stradal's poems were set to music, for example by her husband and the composers Friedrich Weigmann (1869–1939) and Markus Lehmann (1919–2003). Through contacts with members of the Bavarian court, who summered at Wildenwart Castle in Chiemgau and attended concerts by the Stradals, a friendship developed with Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria (1859–1949). He too set a poem by Hildegard Stradal to music: "The clouds hang down gray".
Career as a writer
While the musical works of the arranger and pianist August Stradal are well recorded thanks to the biography August Stradals Lebensbild written by his wife, Hildegard Stradal's own literary works are difficult to trace due to two world wars and the associated change of location. Moreover, they are overshadowed by her work as a singer-songwriter.
Hildegard Stradal found leisure for her literary work above all at Lake Chiemsee. The proximity to Munich, "this El Dorado of all artistic natures," the convivial life in the summer resort, excursions to the Chiemgau and Berchtesgaden Alps were a rich source of inspiration. From 1890 to 1909, a total of six volumes of her poetry were published. Hildegard Stradal was also active as a translator. She translated three cycles of poems by Victor Hugo into German: Strahlen und Schatten (Les Rayons et les Ombres, 1840) in 1897, Aus dem Morgenlande (Les Orientales, 1829) in 1903, and Seelendämmerung (Les Chants du Crépuscule, 1835) in 1911. In 1914 appeared the tragedy Alexander von Macedonien, a vernacularization of Arthur de Gobineau's Alexandre le Macédonien (1847).
She herself also wrote dramatic texts: Seine Tochter (1899), Helga (1900), Der Spielmann (1901), Auf einsamer Höhe (1904). In addition, she published verse narratives such as Sonnenwende (1901), Was der Wildbach erzählt (1902), Die heilige Elisabeth (1904).
The humorous prose text Von unseren vierbeinigen Hausgenossen (1912) describes experiences with the Stradals' pets and anecdotes about joint train journeys. Following E. T. A. Hoffmann's News of the Most Recent Fate of the Dog Berganza (1814), the dog Sully also has a love of singing and his own musical judgment, which coincides with the Stradals' enthusiasm for Liszt.
Hildegard Stradal's most successful title became the biography about her husband: August Stradal's Lebensbild (1934). The description of their joint concert tours and experiences also conveys autobiographical details. Numerous social encounters paint a broad panorama of the Austro-German musical scene. "The whole second half of the 19th century, especially the whole rich, finely ramified Viennese culture with all the many names from the Liszt, Wagner and Bruckner circles, so dear to us older people, rises again in these sheets with astonishing vividness," judged the composer and music writer Walter Niemann in 1935 in the Zeitschrift für Musik. Included travelogues such as the visit to the island of Arbe (Rab) and the ascent of the Tigna Rossa (Kamenjak) on the occasion of the silver wedding anniversary live from Hildegard Stradal's enthusiasm for nature and linguistic sophistication. The closing words of the Bohemian composer Rudolph von Procházka pay tribute to the literary quality of the work: "It is a book, not only the people of expertise, but every educated reader captivating from the first to the last page, revealing the skillful writer in every line. The interesting descriptions of the travels increase the value of the work no less than those of the various encounters with artists..."
Works
- Gedichte (1890–1898; 3 volumes)
- Seine Tochter. Lyrisches Gedicht in einem Aufzug (1899)
- Helga. Handlung in 5 Abteilungen (1900)
- Ein Leben. Gedichte (1900)
- Der Spielmann. Drama in 1 Aufzug (1901)
- Sonnenwende. Erzählung in Versen (1901)
- Was der Wildbach erzählt. Erzählung in Versen (1902)
- Auf einsamer Höhe. Drama in 2 Aufzügen (1904)
- Die heilige Elisabeth. Erzählung in Versen (1904)
- Zur Dämmerzeit. Gedichte (1907)
- Aus schweren Tagen. Gedichte (1909)
- Von unseren vierbeinigen Hausgenossen (1912)
- August Stradals Lebensbild (1934)
Selected publications
- "Franz Liszt als Liedersänger," Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 64 (1897), p. 465.
- "Ein Gottgesandter," Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 69 (1902), p. 289.
- "August Stradal," Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 106 (1939), p. 76.
- "Drei Briefe Friedrich Kloses an August Stradal," Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 109 (1942), p. 490.
Translations
- Victor Hugo, Strahlen und Schatten (1897)
- Victor Hugo, Aus dem Morgenlande (1903)
- Victor Hugo, Seelendämmerung (1911)
- Arthur de Gobineau, Alexander von Mazedonien (1914)
Notes
- ↑ Meglitsch, Christina (2005). Wiens vergessene Konzertsäle. Der Mythos der Säle Bösendorfer, Ehrbar und Streicher. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, p. 109.
References
- Brümmer, Franz (1913). "Stradal, Hildegard". In: Lexikon der deutschen Dichter und Prosaisten vom Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart. 7. Leipzig: Aufl. Reclam, p. 107.
