Max Erdmannsdorfer (1848-1905)

[Reverie]

Max Erdmannsdörfer was born in Nuremberg. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, becoming concertmaster at Sondershausen. In 1874 he married the pianist and composer Pauline Fichtner, a student of Franz Liszt.

Erdmannsdörfer corresponded with Liszt and he premiered Liszt's symphonic poem Hamlet at Sondershausen on 2 July 1876. He also once owned at least parts of the score of Liszt's lost Piano Concerto No. 3, which was finally pieced together only in 1989 from separate manuscript pages that had been dispersed as far afield as Weimar, Nuremberg and Leningrad.

Max Erdmannsdörfer also had an association with Joachim Raff. He and Pauline were the co-dedicatees of the two-piano version of Raff's Piano Quintet, Op. 107, and they premiered it at Sondershausen on 22 September 1877. In 1870, Pauline had been the dedicatee of Raff's Piano Suite in G minor. Erdmannsdörfer completed Raff's unfinished Symphony No. 11, Op. 214, after its composer's death, and had it published.

In 1882 he became the principal conductor of the Russian Musical Society concerts in Moscow, and professor at the Moscow Conservatory. He and his wife remained there until 1889.

He had a significant association with Tchaikovsky. While Tchaikovsky wrote that Erdmannsdörfer was "inclined to indulge the public's taste of exaggerated nuances" and "offhanded in his attitude to Russian music (except my own)", he nevertheless considered him "a very skilful, experienced and expert conductor". Tchaikovsky permitted him to conduct the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 1 (revised version, 1 December 1883)

His compositions are few in number and now completely forgotten. Until now, of course:

Prinzessin Ilse (1872) The overture to a secular cantata.

LINK:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYiatcrcHCs