Thüringer Volkslied mit Variationen, Op. 141

A counterpoint with History. The German popular theme is a refined composition where Scholz shows his harmonic competence with inedite chromatic shades, embracing this Lied like fog. Scholz is an illusionist who delights us with his harmonic tricks, choosing a simple popular theme, which leads to a cultural rise with harmonic research. He aimed to turn this melody into a high composition. Besides, he was not doing it for showing his skills. His purpose was the aesthetic pleasure, the transfomation of the banal in wonderful. The variations are linked by a chord as harmonic resolution. After this chord, a new variation begins. It develops like a run, appearently endless till two measures of “Coda”, which border this flow. The theme of the Lied is discovered during the piece and it is recognizable in the sixth variation as a pure melody in the form of harmonics. The dense melody of the beginning of the composition is simplified little by little, losing chords and voices and paving the way to the theme of the lied, enhanced by the characteristic timbre of the harmonics. The challenge relies in playing everything with the guitar. A popular instrument? A performance on the piano would have brought a different meaning, looking more academic and less surprising, because of the musical heritage of the main composers of the Middle European area to which Scholz belong. Scholz lived in a era of darkness for the humanity and the innocence of the popular Lied of Thuringia barely harmonizes with the historical context. What was the reason of this choice? May Scholz have intended to adapt to the society of the invasor? This looks unconvincing. In fact, there are neither evidences of related performances nor the usual dedication on the manuscript. On one hand, Scholz was able to hide his opinion very softly; on the other hand he flaunted his thoughts in front of the enemy. Whoever, Germans included, opposed to Nazism was destined to be eliminated. This is very clear for him. Political opponents, mainly Communist, Marxist and the members of the Socialist International were arrested; between the 1933 and the 1945 more than three millions of Germans were condamned to concentration camps or imprisoned for political reasons. Tens of thousands were killed. In the same years the Sondergerichte (“special courts”) sentenced to death 12000 Germans. Moreover, the court-martial sentenced 25000 Germans and the other courts 40000 Germans. Scholz was connected with the Austrian Resistence. This information lies on the Diaries intitled “My Prisons” by Emil Alphons Rheinhardt, poet, writer and professor at the Academy of Literature and Music, who Scholz nostalgically remembered as a good friend. Rheinhardt, in France when Austria was annexed to Germany, founded in Paris the “League for the spiritual Austria” with the collaboration of Bruno Walter. He was imprisoned by the Nazi because of his participation to the French Resistance and deported to Dachau, where he secretly wrote “My Prisons”, diary of three months of imprisonment before his elimination. Accurately hidden and found posthumous, “My Prisons” is considered an important evidence. The choice of Thuringe is not fortuitous. It was an ancient Slavic and German settlement, theological centre since the Middle Ages, the place where Martin Luther lived, studied, graduated in Philosophy and preached, in particular in the city of Erfurt. The father of Johann Sebastian Bach was born in the same city. The Land of Thuringe was born in 1920, with Weimar as capital. The Nazi party took the control of it when Scholz was living there. It was in the short and tragic season of the Republic of Weimar, which became a model of parlamentary democracy for the whole Europe, that the Nazi regime focused on one of the main garrisons of the Reich and on the building of the first concentration camps. Moreover, in the same period it took place the “Night of the Long Knives”, the sinagogue was torched and the deportation of the Jew population started. Did these German, Jews and Slavic people, living between Jewish and Middle European culture and belonging neither to the present nor to the future, die singing a unique ancient melody?