THE BLUE FLOWER

There is a dream that is as old as humanity, of a forgotten land, hidden in time, beyond an enchanted gate, where all that we wish, at once and forever, can be.  Some call it unattainable, or even deny its existence, others claim a life pursuing it will usher us in, still others that it does not exist until imagined and pursued.  

In the Spring of 2003 a manuscript was uncovered from  a cave in southern Germany.  The Blue Flower, consisting of thirty three measures for solo piano, is signed, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, but this is a pseudonym: Ofterdingen is the hero of a novel by Novalis, the Romantic poet, a novel whose plot centers on the quest for a dream-flower that symbolizes  The Ideal.

A stylistic analysis of the score indicates the presence of  the  Lisztian method of “thematic transformation”: this pinpoints the date of composition to a time no earlier than the mid - 1850’s.  The numerous “pregnant pauses” on half-cadences followed by surprising tonal shifts bespeak an acquaintance with Wagner’s “Tristan” (1857) - or did Wagner get the idea from "Ofterdingen"?  But the delicate chromatic shifts are combined with a  butterfly- suppleness of rhythm  and melody resulting  in a musical impression distinct from  anything found in the Liszt / Wagner circle (with the exception of some rare moments in the lieder of Peter  Cornelius).  The tone is somehow both innig and aloof from the cloying sensuality that mars the efforts of the aforementioned group.  At the same time the miniatureism of the piece combined with its aura of solitude (it relates to nothing outside itself) evoke images of some huge, unknown opera (even tetralogy - forever lost?) to which the music before us may be but a sketch for a Prelude.   On the negative side, The Blue Flower indulges in certain sins common to its period: excessive sequence, a chromatic matrix too provocative for its proportions, and a rather desultory effect, despite its brevity.  “Herr Ofterdingen,” like so many of his contemporaries, seems to have lacked the epic sense achieved only by the great masters of the past.  

And yet  for some there is a moment,  a soft turn of melody, that seems slightly to lift the enchanted gate: an inexplicable optimism arises, and,  breathless, we seem to catch the divine dream's dim echo, beckoning us out from ourselves...

The work at hand being until now completely unknown, the question of its influence on future generations may be dismissed.  Yet all the more forcibly do the music’s prescient qualities emerge: in its preference for tritone transpositions and chromatic saturation the work anticipates the next century and in so doing lends the credence of an independent voice to our conviction that Romanticism (like so many of its heroes) as a movement carries a death-wish and bears the seeds of its dissolution into either the madness of Expressionism or the icy  cold of Existentialism.

In conclusion, The Blue Flower is either:
1.  The work of an unknown 19th century composer, probably German, who, in an ultimate, extravagant act, sublimated his creative output (Is there more music lurking in other caves?), hiding it from the world, to await its discovery in some remote, utopian future, or
2.  A fraud perpetrated by some anonymous (bitter? demented?) musicologist, who  has attempted to reconstruct not only the musical language but the larger Welt - anschauung of Romanticism, perhaps intending the exercise  as an ironic commentary on the issues of musical style, quality and originality, or perhaps (we suspect) hoping to make fools of the scholarly community (as heinous as it is cowardly an endeavor).  

It has been deemed advisable to publish a facsimile of the autograph, in order to bring the musician into the closest possible contact with the composer’s intentions.  For fingering and pedal we recommend common sense and musical taste (if available).