Marcel Tyberg, Symphony No. 3 in D minor (1943)
I. Andante maestoso - Solenne e sostenuto [0:00]
II. Scherzo: Allegro non troppo [14:15]
III. Adagio [20:37]
IV. Rondo: Allegro vivace [30:04]
Conductor: JoAnn Falletta
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
An orchestral work by the Austrian composer, pianist and conductor Marcel Tyberg (1893-1944), who was also known as Till Bergmar. Tyberg continued to compose in a late Romantic style decades after the last flowering of the genre. His compositions reflect numerous influences; this large-scale symphony, in particular, shares many qualities with the music of Gustav Mahler. The score of the Third Symphony was rediscovered in 2005 in the collection of Tyberg scores kept by a certain Dr. Enrico Mihich of Buffalo, NY, the son of Italian physician Dr. Milan Mihich, to whom Tyberg entrusted his manuscript scores for safekeeping during the Second World War.
Tyberg was born into a musical family in Vienna in 1893. His father Marcell (Sr.) was a successful violinist and his mother Wanda Paltinger Tybergova was a pianist who studied under Theodor Leschetizky. Due to their musical connections, the Tybergs were close to the Kubeliks - Marcel Tyberg and Rafael Kubelik became lifelong friends. Little is known about Tyberg's education, although he probably received musical training from his parents. The family moved away from the disintegrating Austrian Empire to the Italian town of Abbrazia in 1916. Tyberg occasionally performed with the local symphony orchestra as a soloist and conductor, and he supplemented his income by playing the organ in different churches and teaching harmony to young students. He also began publishing compositions around this time. His oeuvre eventually grew to include three of his own symphonies, two movements to round off Schubert's "Unfinished" Eighth Symphony, two masses, some piano and chamber music, and numerous Lieder. He also wrote light dance music under the pseudonym Till Bergmar. By the outbreak of the Second World War, Tyberg had earned himself a reputation as a highly talented composer with a mastery of large forms. Then in September 1943, just weeks before the Allies occupied Italy, Hitler issued Order No. 26 (Improvement in the Defensive Power of Croatia) - and this act sealed Tyberg's fate. All antisemitic Nazi laws were applied in the Italian-controlled territory of Abbrazia (today's Opatija), and it became clear that Tyberg would be deported by the Nazi Gestapo for his partly Jewish ancestry (he was one sixteenth Jewish). He entrusted his compositions to his friend Milan Mihich shortly before he was deported to the concentration camps of San Sabba and Auschwitz. It is believed that Tyberg died on December 31, 1944.
