The Best of Joseph Haydn

Johann Friedrich Reichardt - His Music and His Life

Reichardt, Johann Friedrich (born in Königsberg, 1752; died Giebichenstein, 1814). German composer, conductor, and writer. Court composer and conductor to Frederick the Great and Frederick II, 1775–94. Instituted many reforms. Visited London and Paris 1785 and again some years later. Dismissed from court post for sympathy with French Revolution. Conductor Kassel Opera (Germany) 1808. Wrote at least 12 operas, Singspiele, setting of Milton's Morning Hymn, over 1,500 songs (incl. setting of Erlkönig, highly praised by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy), and much chamber music. Author of several books on compostions.

Max Reger - His Music and His Life

The German Max Reger was born in Brand, Fichtelgebirge on March 19, 1873.

Reger experienced an incredible career up to becoming Court Conducter in Meiningen/Germany. The daily contact with a proficient orchestra trained Reger's sense, mind and meaning for colorful instrumentation.

As piano virtuoso, Reger sent his listeners into raptures because of a wonderful fine and delicate finger touch. 

In my opinion Reger is the most unterrated piano composer ever. "Varations and Fugue on a theme by Bach" is probably his most famous piano work. "Thinking in fugues" - that's why his organ compositions belong to German music treasures. But also his chamber music repertory remained as unsurpassable rich. Even being a devote Catholic, Reger enriched also other creeds with varied church and organ music works.

Max Reger's lifestyle has been described as "full of deeply moral earnestness". He passed away in Leipzig on May 11, 1916.

Siegfried Ochs - His Music and His Life

The German Siegfried Ochs was born in Frankfurt/Main on April 19, 1858. He initially studied chemistry but later switched to music.

In 1882, Siegfried Ochs formed the Philharmonic Choir Berlin, which is still existing until today. Ochs especially supported choral works of Johannes Brahms.

In 1894, Ochs organized a concert contending of compositions by Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf. Both composers attended this event personally.

Literary works such as "Der deutsche Gesangverein" (1923, The German Choral Society") - or "Geschehenes - Gesehenes" (1922, Events and Insights) are also very remarkable. Ochs' humoristic compositions can be listened on air very seldom unfortunately.

Siegfried Ochs passed away in Berlin on February 6, 1929.

Kurt Weill - His Music and His Life

One of the most versatile and influential composers of the musical theatre in the twentieth century, Kurt Weill (b. Dessau, Germany, March 2, 1900; d. New York, April 3, 1950), had two important careers, one in Germany in the 1920s, the other from his emigration to the United States in 1935 until his death. The style of his second period is sharply distinct from that of the first. Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera 1928) is by far his best known stage piece; its famous "Mack the Knife" ("Die Moritat von Mackie Messer") has been recorded countless times by an unbelievably wide range of artists (Bobby Darin, Louis Armstrong, Lotte Lenya). Weill also composed a number of "serious" works for the concert hall.

The third of four children born to a cantor in the Jewish quarter of Dessau, Weill began piano lessons at the age of twelve and soon began to write songs, mostly to the verse of serious poets. He studied piano, composition, theory, and conducting from 1915 with Albert Bing, Kapellmeister at Dessau's "Court Theatre," and occasionally performed as Bing's stand-in. At eighteen he went to Berlin to the Hochschule für Musik, and wrote his first string quartet under the tutelage of Engelbert Humperdinck (composer of Hansel and Gretel). That eminent Wagnerian apparently had little time for him, and when Weill learned that his family had fallen on hard times, he returned to Dessau.

He joined the staff of the Friedrich-Theater as a rehearsal pianist, and in 1919 obtained a post at the Stadttheater in Lüdenscheid, where he directed light opera for a few months. He returned to Berlin in late 1920 to study composition with Ferruccio Busoni, eking out a living playing the piano in a beer-hall.

Most of Kurt Weill's compositions of this period were those of a young man with high aspirations: a symphony, a choral fantasy, a psalm. The first of them to find its way to the public stage was a children's pantomime Die Zaubernacht (The Magic Night), premiered in late 1922. Soon thereafter, the Berlin Philharmonic performed his Divertimento for Orchestra and the Hindemith-Amar Quartet played his String Quartet Op. 8. In late 1923 Weill concluded his studies with Busoni and was well on his way to being seen as one of the leading composers of his generation.

In 1926, Weill's first opera, Der Protagonist, in one act, had a sensational debut in Dresden. Its librettist was Georg Kaiser, the most prominent playwright during the years of the Weimar Republic. Kaiser's expressionist style avoided characterization and psychology, relying on archetypes to focus on society's ills; his influence was strong upon the dramatists Iwan Goll and Bertolt Brecht, who would also work closely with Weill. Kaiser collaborated on two more stage works, the comic opera Der Zar lässt sich photographieren (The Czar Has His Picture Taken 1928) and a play with music, Der Silbersee (The Silver Lake 1933).

Through Kaiser, Weill met actress and singer Lotte Lenya in the summer of 1924. They would be married in 1926, divorced in 1933, and married again in the United States in 1937. Theirs was an "open" marriage that lasted until Weill's death in 1950. Lenya subsequently established the Kurt Weill Foundation for the management and promotion of his legacy.

Weill first sought a collaboration with Bertolt Brecht in 1927, in the creation of a cabaret-scaled "Songspiel," Mahagonny. Its scandalous success encouraged them to expand the work to opera length, and as Der Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), it premiered in Leipzig in March 1930. In the three years between, Brecht and Weill worked together on numerous theatrical projects, among them the wildly popular Threepenny Opera and Happy End (1929). All this time, workaholic Weill was writing critical reviews by the hundreds for the German Radio's program guide. The last collaboration with Brecht was the sung ballet Die sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins 1933), produced in Paris (and starring Lotte Lenya) after both Brecht and Weill had fled the Nazis' rise to power.

In September 1935 Weill and Lenya (now divorced) traveled to New York. Max Reinhardt was producing an epic stage-piece by Franz Werfel, Der Weg der Verheissung (The Promised [later "Eternal"] Road 1937), for which Weill had written an ambitious score. Though this project was delayed, the Group Theatre was putting together a musical play on Hasek's The Good Soldier Schweik, and finding Weill close at hand, engaged him to write Johnny Johnson. Thus for a time in 1937 two successful Weill works were running on Broadway simultaneously.

Weill pursued the foremost playwrights of the day as his collaborators: Maxwell Anderson (Knickerbocker Holiday 1938, with Weill's first standard hit "September Song"; Lost in the Stars 1949), Moss Hart (Lady in the Dark 1940, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin), and S.J. Perelman (One Touch of Venus 1943, with another timeless hit, "Speak Low," lyrics by Ogden Nash). In 1947 the Playwrights Producing Company, to which he had been elected as its only musician, brought Weill's opera Street Scene, with a libretto based on Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning play and lyrics by the Harlem poet Langston Hughes, to Broadway.

The temperament of Street Scene (which won the first Tony Award^® for Best Original Score) is a far cry from that of Mahagonny; one would hardly guess it was by the same composer. Weill had become a US citizen in 1943, and avoided using the German language again, except to write to his parents who had escaped to Israel. He had also traded the brittle, dissonant, confrontational style of his Weimar compositions for a more lyrical, pacific approach when he turned to the American theatre – indeed Weill believed his German works had been destroyed.

Shortly after his fiftieth birthday, still working overtime, Weill died of a heart attack. His death immediately stimulated a resurgence of interest in his earlier work: Der Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny is now firmly entrenched in the operatic repertory; The Threepenny Opera continues to be performed and known by heart all over the world.

Karl Loewe - His Music and His Life

The German Karl Loewe was born in Loebejuen near Halle on November 30, 1796 as 12th child of a simple school teacher.

Loewe was able to study because of King Jerome's generous scholarship. In Stettin, Loewe became musical director. In this position, he was at work for 46 (!) years.

Loewe composed chamber music and five operas. "The Three Wishes" premiered in Berlin in 1834. Loewe's oratorios are popular until today - "Jerusalem's Destruction" (1829), "Hiob" (1848) or "Lazarus' Wake" (1863).

Among 150 compositions, Karl Loewe's ballads rmained as incredible and convincing performances, i.e. "Die Glocken von Speyer" (The Bells from Speyer), "Mr. Oluf" or "The Fall into a Ruin Mill".

Loewe passed away in Kiel on April 20, 1869.

Albert Lortzing : Holzschuhtanz ( Zar und Zimmermann ) - Andrè Rieu and ...

Albert Lortzing - His Music and His Life

The German Albert Lortzing was born in Berlin on October 23, 1801. His father was a leather goods tader and amateurish actor. Lortzing didn't receive any sufficient musical education. "Learning by doing" at theatres in Breslau and Aachen / Germany or the French Strasbourg made Lortzing's incredible education.

In 1824, his first (untitled!) opera premiered in Cologne. His oratorio "The Ascension of Christ" was heard in Muenster/Germany in 1828. Nine years later, Lortzing's successful opera "Zar und Zimmermann" ("Czar and Carpenter") followed. It became also his most famous composition.

"Der Wildschuetz" ("The Deerhunter") from 1842, un fortunately never became such popular as the romantic opera "Undine" from 1845.

Albert Lortzing passed away also in Berlin on January 21, 1851. His tragically end in poverty, loneliness and illness is really an inglorious part of Berlin's music history.

Hochzeitsmarsch Wedding March (Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy) Ein Sommerna...

Ludwig Spohr - His Music and His Life

The German Ludwig Spohr was born in Braunschweig on April 5, 1784. Many times, Spohr appeared with the French version of hirst name as Louis.

Spohr's parents were great musicians: his father, a doctor, played the flute while his mother enjoyed the piano play and sung. Spohr studied violine play and joined the Duchess Band Braunschwweig already at the age of 15.

During a period of 20 years, he was fulfilled with anthusiasm while residing in Leipzig. He loved travelling with his wife, who was a blessed harpist. After 25 years in Kassel, Spohr became General Music Director.

Among more or less 150 compositions, we can find ten operas. Very much impressing had been "Faust" (1816) and "Jessonda" (1823) - typical romantic operas. Fire and chivalrous emotions together with lyrical tenderness and conventialism characterized Spohr's compositions.

Nevertheless, Spohr remainded powwerless and feeble. He wasn't able to reach composers like Mozart, Wagner or Brahms. His symphonies are forgotten: only the 4th "Sounds Solemnity" can be listened from time to time in concert houses or classic music radio stations.

Spohr passed away in Kassel on October 22, 1859.

Engelbert Humperdinck - His Music and His Life

German composer Engelbert Humperdinck was born on September 1, 1854 bin Siegburg/Rheinland. He has - of course! - nothing to do with the identical pop singer. Humperdinck received innumerable awards from the Collee of Music Cologne and the Mozart Award from the Munich Academy of Tone Arts.

During the Bayreuth Festival in 1882, Humperdinck became the assistant of Richard Wagner. Humperdinck's career went on as Professor of Composition in Barcelona (1885-1887) and 1890 in Frankfurt/Germany. In 1900, Humperdinck took over the master director form of the Berlin Academy of Arts.

Humperdinck's compositions started with chorus ballads, simple songs, a humorous orchestral work and a tonal, fine sounding string quartet.

His first opera "Hansel and Gretel" (1893) showed very well that the new generation lacks very much Richard Wagner's pathos. "Hansel and Gretel" became an utterly impossible folksong melodic "Christmas"-opera with the lyrics of Humperdinck's sister Adelheid Wette.

The melodramatic opera "The King's Children" (1897) premiered 1910 in New York, but -admittedly - became never home and familiar. "The Marriage with Reluctance" (1905) flopped because of naive awkwardness and ornate orchestral composition.

The keenness Engelbert Humperdinck passed away in Neustrelitz on September 27, 1921.

Paul Hindemith: Trauermusik (1936) - His Music and His Life

The German Paul Hindemith was born in Hanau nearby Frankfurt/Main on November 16, 1895 and studied with Arnold Mendelsohn (1855-1933) and Bernhard Sekles (1872-1934).

Hindemith became the first important composer coming from a string instrument since Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859). In 1915, Hindemith became concert master at the Frankfurt Opera.

Since 1922, Paul Hindemith started his incredible career as the founder of the New German Classical Music. His operas "Murders - Women Hope" (1921) and "Sancta Susanna" (also 1921) have been witnesses of Hindemith's assault on classical music. The radicalizing "Piano Suite 1922" has been denied categorically. Hindemith's compositions have been remained as a matter of taste. His book "A Composer's World - Horizons and Limitations", published in 1952, seems like a stylish report or even justification.

Paul Hindemith passed away on December 28, 1963 in Frankfurt/Main. 

Max Fiedler - His Music and His Life

The German Max Fiedler was born in Zittau on December 31, 1859. He studied at the College of Music in Leipzig, Eastern Germany and became later an oustanding conductor in Hamburg, then, from 1908 until 1912 in Boston, and 1916 as Urban Music Director in Essen/Germany.

Especially his chamber music compositions and his wonderful and impressive "Symphony d-minor" from 1885 remained as classical music highlights forever.

Max Fiedler felt very much connected and obliged to Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).

Fiedler passed away on December 1, 1939 in Stockholm/Sweden.

Max Bruch - His Music and His Life

 

The German Max Burch was born on January 5, 1838 in Cologne. His mother was his first emotional music teacher.

At the age of 11, Bruch composed his first classical piece, simple entitled as OPUS 1. When he became 14, his first symphony premiered in Cologne. 

After his father's death, Bruch got an insatiable thirst to travel around the whole world, which facilitated him many important and fruitful meetings with society personalities from politic, culture and clergy.

His ever best stage play, the opera "Lorely", premiered 1863 in Mannheim, Germany. Melodic and tuneful folksong atmosphere and E. Geibel's soft-emotional script are the reasons of this never forgotten highlight of Max Bruch.

Bruch's most valid orchestral works have been his "First violin Concerto in g-minor" from 1868; "The Scottish Fantasy" and -one of my favourites- "Variations Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra".

He received innumerabe honors, praises and musical awards. Even being very contrapuntally, Bruch remains as a very special classic composer in the hearts of real music lovers.

Bruch passed away in Berlin on October 2, 1920.

Leo Blech - His Music and His Life

The German Leo Blech was born in Aachen on April 21, 1871. He was a real great opera composer and conductor, who is perhaps most famous at his works from 1893-1899, when be became a conductor in his home town Aachen. Later he moved to Prague in the former CSSR. In 1906, Blech became First Conductor of Berlin's Royal Opera House (Koenigliches Schauspielhaus) - later the Berlin State Opera (Staatsoper Unter den Linden).

In 1925 in Vienna State Opera, then in Berlin 1936-1941, Riga in Lativa, then Stockholm in Sweden - what a career and what a fulfilled life for Leo Blech, who was known for his reliable, dear and elegant performances and for his sensitivity as an accompanist.

Besides apt and practical children's songs, Blech's comic operas deserved sympathy: "Das war ich" (That was me, 1902) and "Versiegelt" (Sealed, 1908).

Leo Blech passed away in Berlin on August 24, 1958.

Franz von Suppe - His Music and Life

Franz von Suppe, born on April 18, 1819, was one of the founders of Viennese operetta, attaining a position in Austria comparable to that of Jacques Offenbach in France. 

Suppe wrote over 200 compositions for the stage, including 30 operettas, farces, and incidental music. Nearly all these works have slipped into oblivion, but some of their sparkling overtures have survived and remain popular as light music, especially "Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna" (1844), "Poet and Peasant" (1846), and "Light Cavalry" (1866). In the United States, Suppe's music is probably best known for its frequent appearance on the soundtracks of old Hollywood movies and cartoons. Suppe was born in Split, Dalmatia, of Italian and Belgian descent. His real name was Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Suppe-Demelli. He spent most of his life in Vienna and was Kapellmeister of the prestigious Theatre an der Wien from 1845 to 1862. Suppe was also a noted vocalist and sang bass roles in some of his early operettas.

His passed away on May 21, 1895 in Vienna.

Richard Strauss - His Music and Life

“I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.” Richard Strauss, composer

Born on June 11, 1864 in Munich, the German Richard Strauss passed away in Garmisch on September 8, 1949. His mother came from the Munich brewery family Pschorr.

His father, Franz Strauss, had been the "First Royal Bugle Player" of the Royal Musician Academy Munich. Also Richard Strauss had nothing to do with the Viennese Johann Strauss dynasty.

His first compostions left (or better "bequeathed") great classical music treasures: "String Quintet a-major" (1881), "Symphony a-major" (1884), and many more. Strauss' "Great Symphony in f-minor" (1882-1884) has been performed for the first time in New York. His "Burlesque for piano and orchestra" (1885) showed great influences of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).

In 1888, Strauss composed his first sound poetry "Don Juan", which became the first lasting report of a new classical composition direction. The following pieces "Marbeth" (1890) and "Death and Transfiguration" (1891) overtaxed many musicians' possibilities.

Also "Zarathustra speaks" (1896) suffered from the attempt something to express more by music but remaining unsuccessful.

Strauss started to accept his own naive-uninhibited phantasm and much more beautiful compositions attained his goal. The opera "Salome" (lyrics by Oscar Wilde) was a hazardous business, but the title role's perverted hysteria griped Strauss. The premiere in Dresden/German in 1905 became a great success.

Richard Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra / 2001 Space Odyssey opening t...

Otto Nicolai - His Music and Life

Born on June 9, 1810 in Königsberg, Germany/Poland, Otto Nicolai passed away in Berlin on May 11, 1849.

At the age of 16, he left his parental house because he thought he mind find his personal fulfilment and luck by travelling to foreign countries.

A generous sponsor facilitated a music study with Karl-Friedrich Zeller (1758-1832) in Berlin. In 1833, Otto Nicolai became organist at the German Legation of Rome. He started composing operas following the typical Italian style. "Il Templaro" (1840) became his greatest success.

The premiere of "The Merry Wifes from Windsor" ("Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor" - 1849) impressed all classical music lovers with wonderful melodies and grateful opera parts. Nicolai could enjoy an over-whelming  appreciation only for two months (!), because he passed away surprisingly.

During the 1930s a rebirth of his music works has been without success. What a pity!