Alwin Kranich (1865-1944)

[Wheesht]

Alwin (or Alvin) Kranich was born in New York on 9 October 1865 as the third child of the piano maker Helmuth Kranich. In 1894 he went to Leipzig to continue his studies, and in 1896 he formed the " Novitäten-Quartette-Vereinigung", an association devoted to promoting only the music of modern composers. He lived in Dresden from 1904, where he started a concert series, and apparently he studied with Rubinstein. He toured Europe as a concert pianist for many years and composed a fair number of works. By 1911 his work list included a piano concerto in G minor (first performed in Leipzig in March 1900 from the manuscript, with the composer as the soloist), a fantasy for piano and orchestra, symphonic poems ("Maria Magdalena" and "Amy Robsart"), rhapsody Americana for large orchestra, chamber and piano pieces and a cantata "Der Wachturm" for alto solo, women's choir and orchestra. Later he appears to have written another piano concerto. By 1930 he had returned to New York, where he worked for WNYC radio, hosting the weekly show Musical Essays from 1932 to 1937, and died in 1944. There is one recording related to Alvin Kranich, his "Fantasy Overture," that can be listened to on the WNYC website.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I wonder where his manuscripts are. Fleisher has only one work: Marchen (Fairytale) for string orchestra. Same for LOC.

[eschiss1]

Märchen = folktale/ballads or fairytale (more often the former, I think) - but not marches! I think of "marshes", though - if only because the original Rusalka (the grimmer, sadder original of The Little Mermaid) might well be swamp-stuffs.

Maybe his name needs to be looked up under variations and elsewhere? No idea unfortunately at the moment but will have a look too.

[eschiss1]

Ooh, here's something. Albumblatt für violine und klavier in manuscript at ÖNB. I assume Alvin and Alwin Kranich are the same fellow.

This article that mentions him calls him Alvin, so maybe so.. From Grand Pianos to Sign Language Clearly the same fellow. Ah, and your first post does say (or Alvin). I missed that, sorry.

[Mark Thomas]

I wonder if it was Kranich conducting on the recording of his Fantasy Overture? I hope not because it surely needs to be played at a tempo around half as fast again as it is here. Given the limitations of the sound it's difficult to pass judgement on much else about it, but the material itself is certainly passable, if conventional.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Märchen = folktale/ballads or fairytale (more often the former, I think) - but not marches! I think of "marshes", though - if only because the original Rusalka (the grimmer, sadder original of The Little Mermaid) might well be swamp-stuffs.

Thanks, Eric - a question of auto-correct on my phone, and me not noticing the "correction"(!!!) before posting. I have amended my original post accordingly.

[eschiss1]

Sorry about that.
Any guesses where some of his music might be? Maybe some of the other big libraries not covered by Worldcat- Hungarian, Czech, Scandinavian libraries, etc. worth checking, etc. since they often might happen to have something...

[Wheesht]

Checking the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog (and ticking all the boxes) unfortunately resulted in no other hits than the two works already mentioned here. Thank you for the article link – very interesting.

[tpaloj]

He died in New York – correct? – presumably his estate would have been left in the States. Curiously, searches for NYPL or LOC turned up nothing. In the worst case scenario, his heirs never turned up his manuscripts over to any libraries and they lay forgotten in their custody in some attic somewhere. I hope someone here might pick up a better leads somehow. There's hardly anything more tantalizing than imagining what this artist's music could have been since, lacking much musical evidence, we know barely anything of his output so far...

[Wheesht]

Tantalising is exactly the right word. All I've been able to come up with so far are a few contemporary reviews, and while they are interesting, they just provide ideas of what critics thought at the time, and one would have to know the reviewers and their tastes...
Perhaps the piano making company has left archives somewhere.