Steven Stanke

Essential and Inevitable Ideas: an Introduction to Fritz Hart's 1919 Opera "The Fantasticks", Op. 35 Steven Stanke

Although relatively unknown today, Fritz Hart was a prolific composer, compiling a catalogue of over 500 song titles alone and 22 operas during a career spanning five decades, from the 1890s to his death in 1949. He also wrote works for orchestra, choir, chamber ensembles, solo instruments and accompaniment, organ, and pianoforte. His rate of output was extraordinary, his technique craftsman-like and even a cursory examination of his works reveals a fertile imagination, a colorful sense of orchestration, and an inclusive knowledge of melody writing and contemporary harmonic practices. This study, of his 1919 opera "The Fantasticks", reveals an instinctive understanding of dramatic flow and unfolding, and an ability to comfortably meld music to action, character and scene. Hart's Wagnerian approach to the use of motif shows highly developed compositional processes that assist, delineate or confirm dramatization and elucidate character and situation.