Dr Alan H. Krueck, Draeseke scholar, dies

[Alan Howe]

It is my sad duty to report that Dr Alan H. Krueck, US musicologist and the world's foremost Draeseke scholar, has died.

Dr Krueck was largely responsible for the renaissance of interest in the music of Felix Draeseke - especially outside the German-speaking world. It was also as a result of his efforts that a series of recordings was made of Draeseke's chamber music over the past ten years or so.

His knowledge was encyclopaedic, his enthusiasm for unsung music irrepressible and his commitment to the cause of Draeseke steadfast. In my last telephone conversation with him just over a week ago, he told me about the premiere of the cello/piano version of the composer's Symphonic Andante at the Draeseke Society's annual meeting at Coburg, Germany just a few weeks ago - and also about the progress being made on the orchestration of the Violin Concerto.

His death is a blow to musicology in general and to Draeseke studies in particular. He will be greatly missed.

[Gareth Vaughan]

This is very sad news indeed. Dr Krueck was a most distinguished musicologist and a champion, not only of Draeseke, but of other neglected composers. His death represents a considerable loss to musical scholarship.

[eschiss1]

This is very sad news indeed. Dr Krueck was a most distinguished musicologist and a champion, not only of Draeseke, but of other neglected composers. His death represents a considerable loss to musical scholarship.

Thirded

[JimL]

Fourthed.   He also contributed his scholarly efforts to the Raff Society, although I don't recall him as a contributor to the old forum there.

[Mark Thomas]

Parallel to his tireless promotion of Draeseke, undoubtedly his first love, Alan also spent much of his life enthusiastically pursuing similar efforts on behalf of Raff. He conducted performances of the symphonies, delivered papers at conferences, buttonholed conductors and concert promoters, translated Raff's biography and produced four fine CDs of his piano music.

He could not have been more supportive of my own efforts on Raff's behalf, contributing much to raff.org, and was unfailingly generous in sharing his research and insights. Indeed, as Alan Howe records, he had only just returned from a trip to Germany, during which he had heard a performance of a Raff symphony, and straightaway sent me a long report on the concert which will be published shortly.

I shall miss his boundless enthusiasm, his encyclopedic knowledge, his constant good humour, his idiosyncratic dress sense, his excellent cooking and the tongue in cheek pride he took in his thrift (self deprecatingly describing himself constantly as "El cheapo grande"). Most of all though, I shall miss the inspiration which Alan, truly the doyen of "unsung composer" enthusiasts, was. His relatively early death is a great loss.

[Ilja]

Having met Alan once in person, and a few times through e-mail, I found him a tireless and unreservedly enthusiastic promotor of the undeservedly unknown. The loss of Alan's spirit an unbelievable erudition is a great blow to 'our' community.

[JimL]

Having met Alan once in person, and a few times through e-mail, I found him a tireless and unreservedly enthusiastic promotor of the undeservedly unknown. The loss of Alan's spirit an unbelievable erudition is a great blow to 'our' community.

His "unbelievable erudition" and energy is the greater loss.  His spirit, however, is ours, and lives on.

P.S. Can anybody tell us what exactly happened?  Car accident?  Stroke?  Heart attack?  Undetected advanced cancer?

[Alan Howe]

It seems it may have been a heart attack.

I for one will greatly miss his profound musical knowledge and his suspicion of all unsubstantiated musicological cant. I shall also miss his wit and his sense of humour, and his willingness to overlook my musical ignorance. He taught me more than anyone about the true extent of great music - and he taught me to discern for myself this greatness rather than rely on the prejudices of others.

Above all, I shall miss talking to him about my own favourite unsung, Felix Draeseke. I shall no longer be able to share with him my joy at discovering music as great as, but totally different from that of other composers of the same period. And I shall miss terribly his regular updates about what there was still left to do in the Draeseke cause. There will be no more late-night phone calls, going on far too long - and often at his expense. 'El cheapo grande' was actually 'El generoso grande'...

[eschiss1]

I see an online obituary here - http://www.heraldstandard.com/news_detail/article/1251/2010/june/27/alan-h-krueck.html but it is spare.
As there is no Wikipedia article for him, though, that (plus draeseke.org and what I remember of his dissertation) may provide the basis of a stub.
Eric

[JimL]

I for one will greatly miss his profound musical knowledge and his suspicion of all unsubstantiated musicological cant...He taught me more than anyone about the true extent of great music - and he taught me to discern for myself this greatness rather than rely on the prejudices of others.

Well, speaking of prejudices and unsubstantiated musicological cant here's a quote from David Hurwitz, for those of you who still take his reviews seriously as musicologically informed: "The Second concerto always has impressed me as being every bit as good as the First. Like its more famous predecessor, it avoids that Romantic Achilles' heel, the sonata-form first movement. Here a voluptuous and melodically stunning Adagio leads to a brief, dramatic recitative and a lively finale. The Third concerto isn't quite so lucky--sonata form rears its ugly head in the very long first movement".  This is regarding Max Bruch's 2nd and 3rd Violin Concertos.  A question for Mr. Hurwitz: just what do you think the structure of the Adagio of Bruch's 2nd Violin Concerto is?  Ternary?  Rondo, perhaps?  Even the first movement of Concerto 1 has a somewhat modified and condensed version of sonata form as its structural basis. 

Sorry.  I've been wanting to take a dig at Hurwitz for some of his opinions for a while, and this is a typical example of the sort of thing I can't stand about them.  I'll bet Dr. Krueck would have picked up on this right away.

[john_boyer]

I met Alan once in Rochester, New York, about eight years ago.  I was staying with a friend on the faculty of Nazareth College whom I had met the previous summer at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival.  I had been corresponding with Alan by e-mail and when I mentioned my forthcoming trip to central New York he told me that he would be there at the same time, so why not meet?

I told my host about Alan's suggestion, so we made plans to meet for dinner, then go to a concert of the Rochester Philharmonic.  Alan was a curious dresser, as has been mentioned.  When we met him, he was attired rather like how one would imagine an English country gentleman would dress, assuming one had never been to the English countryside.  He cheerily greeted us, chatted amiably during the short walk to our table, chatted enthusiastically while we ordered, and basically never stopped for the entire meal.  We nodded encouragingly between mouthfuls, but said little.

This was my first encounter with Alan's famous enthusiasm.  I must admit that at the time I was a bit perplexed, but I later came to understand that this was just how Alan was.  If you entered into an encounter with him prepared for "My Dinner With Alan", then you could actually have a grand time.  I am reminded of George Henschel's reminiscence of a visit with Brahms to Raff's house:

In the afternoon we paid a visit to Joachim Raff. Raff was one of the most popular composers of the time and lived at that time in Wiesbaden. Of his over 300 works, scarcely three are known today. 'I really like Raff a lot', said Brahms, 'and he likes to hear himself speak so much that it is as much fun as going to the theatre...He isn't happy unless he composes a certain number of hours each day, and on top of that he writes out all his orchestral parts himself!'

I mean not a word of this disparagingly.  In a way, listening to Alan really was almost as much fun as going to the theatre.

Curiously, I don't remember much about the concert.  They might have done Hindemith's Mathis der Maler on the second half, which I ought to remember since it's one of my favorite works.  What I do remember vividly was a performance of Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915, with the very lovely Jennifer Aylmer as the soloist.  As the orchestra was tuning up Alan turned to me and said, "Forgive me, but you may hear a choked sob or two coming from me.  I love this piece, and every time I hear the part where the soprano talks about her mother and father being good to her, I can't help think of my own parents.  They were so good to me and I loved them very much."

The work began.  I was quite taken in by the performance.  Then, the moment arrived:

All my people are larger bodies than mine...with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds.  One is an artist, he is living at home.  One is a musician, she is living at home.  One is my mother, who is good to me.  One is my father, who is good to me.  By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying on quilts, on the grass, in the summer evening, among the sounds of the night?

I became aware of motion to my left.  Alan was quietly clutching his handkerchief, muffling his sobs and dabbing his tears.

Alan gave me a standing invitation to visit him where he lived near Pittsburgh.  Though a musician in spirit he was a German scholar by profession, having taught the subject for many years at the improbably named California University of Pennsylvania.  Alas, in the intervening years I never took him up on it.  Now that chance is gone.  In it's place, I'll have a certain association to someone, now gone, whenever I hear a key passage from Barber's Knoxville.

[John H White]

Welcome back to our new Forum John and what a moving account you give of your encounter with the late Dr Kruek.
Quite honestly, until seeing this thread, I had never heard of him; but now, after hearing the testimonies of Alan, Mark, yourself and other Forum members, I feel we have all lost a very good musical friend. May he rest in peace.

[mbhaub]

He... translated Raff's biography and produced four fine CDs of his piano music.

I wavery shocked and saddened to hear of Dr. Krueck's passing. This comment from Mark sure caught my attention. So Dr. Krueck translated the bio done by Raff's daughter? And is there any chance this translation would be available? I would love to read an English language bio of Raff. Publishing it could be a nice tribute to the late author.

[Alan Howe]

Bob Rej, webmaster of the Draeseke Webpages, would like to use material posted in this thread for the tribute shortly to be uploaded to that website. If anyone has any objection to this or would like to edit their remarks, please would you contact Bob at:

webmaster@draeseke.org

[Mark Thomas]

Martin asks about Alan Krueck's translation of Helene Raff's biography of her father.

He made the translation at least 15-20 years ago and had intended it to be part of his Raff magnum opus, his retirement project, which would have comprised the translation, his commentary on it drawing on his researches in Germany, together with a multi-volume analytical review of Raff's major works. As time went by, though, I guess his old enthusiasm for Draeseke gained the upper and and he focussed elsewhere. When I stayed with Alan for a few days about five years ago he feared that the translation was lost because it was stored on an old computer which he, ever the technophobe, couldn't get to work. Luckily the technical problem was a minor one, we got the PC going and managed to retrieve the biography.

Earlier this year, having recognised that he was never going to write his Raff tome, he asked if I would publish it sometime in the next few years and I will certainly do that - probably next year. My current intention is to make it the second in a series of three books which will provide essential research material for those interested in Raff. It will be available in both digital and traditional format. Alan himself didn't regard it as a perfect translation, being rather literally done, and so it will need some editing, but it's a very readable volume which I have mined liberally already when writing about Raff and his music. I'll keep you posted.