German Music Folder

[eschiss1]

Riemann's Musik-Lekixon, 1900 edition (@Google or IMSLP), page 924 has a sentence biography of Adolf Reichel so:
Geb[oren] 1817 zu Tursnitz in Westpreussen, gestorben 4 Marz 1896 in Bern, war lange Jahre Dirigent der Dreysigjschen (run by Dreyssig) Singakedemie zu Dresden, später Dirigent des Cäcilienvereins in Bern.

Hrm. I suppose that except for adding yet another possible year-date (MusicSack plops for 1820, and 1820-August 30 at that, by the way, in Tursnitz, Graudenz) to 1816 and 1820, that really adds nothing. Hrm. Sorry.


Wait, Adolf Reichel? That name sounds very familiar... Oh...

Another bio, in English: A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians by Theodore Baker (3rd Edition of 1919), page 750. (See IMSLP which contains scores/parts of a piano trio, songs and a string quartet by Reichel.  I remember transferring/etc. the trio and quartet. Rather liked the quartet at least on a skim. No wonder the name sounded familiar...)

Reichel, Adolf Heinrich Johann (b. Tursnitz, W. Prussia, 1817; d. Bern, March 5, 1896.) Pupil of Dehn and L.(udwig) Berger in Berlin; lived 14 years in Paris as a pf.-teacher and composer (pf.-concertos, 2 pf.-trios, 4 preludes and fugues, also mazurkas and sonatas, f. pf.; masses; many songs); 1857-67, teacher of comp. at Dresden cons. and conduct. of Dreyssig's Singakademie ; from 1867, municipal music director at Bern, Switzerland. And as mentioned, teacher of Klughardt (unless that was another Reichel, like Friedrich Reichel- not sure... well, "Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians" ed. by Apthorp etc. claims Klughardt was taught by Adolf Reichel and Blassmann...)

April 1 1896: "On the 4th ult. [March 4] in Bern, Adolph Reichel, composer, conductor of the Cecilia Choral Society, aged eighty." - brief obituary notice, page 268 of The Musical Times, volume 37.

[mikehopf]

Mark, you are a real hero!

Thank you a million times for the excellent uploads of rare Romantic symphonic works.

You've made my day... week.. month...year!

[semloh]

Mark, you are a real hero!

Thank you a million times for the excellent uploads of rare Romantic symphonic works.

You've made my day... week.. month...year!

I couldn't agree more! 

Thank you, Mark - and (rather than repeating myself in the Hungarian downloads discussion) a special thank you for the Goldmark. I love these, and both Merlin and From Youth have been on my 'wants list' for at least 30 years!

You're a gem! 

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks for the Reichel references, Eric. Ideally I'd like to come across his autobiographical sketch (referred to somewhere I've read) or a proper work list, or something. I did find yesterday an 1880s review of a chamber work of his which described his style as "early Beethoven" and that's a pretty accurate description I think. Thanks for the YouTube link, britishcomposer - I'd seen that. I got my copy years and years ago - probably before YouTube existed!. Otherwise, thanks for the thanks. There'll be some more 19th century uploads over the next few weeks, when I have time.

[Richard Moss]

Mark,

Can I echo my thoughts as per 'Mikehop' above for these recent marvellous additions to what I feel are 'true' romantic works.  Obviously, I'm not a proper critic to comment on 20th C works but nearly all the ones I've listened to - here and elsewhere -  don't usually have the melodic charm of 19th C works, even if the latter are not discordant!  So, once again, many thanks for your recent flurry of 'right on the mark' tuneful and 'rare' 19th C items. 

Richard

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks very much, Richard. I'm conscious that those of us who have been members for some time of UC and it's predecessor, the Raff Forum, have seen a shift away from its original purely 19th century romantic focus and that lately the works offered for download have predominantly been 20th or 21st century pieces. Whilst I'm happy that we're now a broader church, and I'm not in any way denigrating all the uploads of more modern repertoire, I thought that it was time to redress the balance somewhat. I'll carry on cherry picking reasonable recordings of fine music from the earlier end of our interest spectrum, but my collection isn't a bottomless pit by any means and it would be good if there were more uploads offered by others whose focus, like mine, is primarily music written between the Napoleonic and First World Wars.

Anyway, for lovers of the romantic piano concerto I've just uploaded a fine example of the genre: Gernsheim's Piano Concerto from 1868.

[Mark Thomas]

... and for good measure I've just added two well crafted overtures by Carl Reinecke: Aladdin and a Festival Overture.

[Mark Thomas]

Finishing off today's activity and to end my uploads of the music of Carl Reinecke, I added the delicious Harp Concerto, a Ballade for flute and orchestra which was amongst his last compositions and his arrangement for orchestra of six pieces from his piano cycle From the Cradle to the Grave. I can't identify which six of the sixteen piano pieces Reinecke has arranged in the set and so if someone else can, could they please tell me? Thanks.

[eschiss1]

Yay again, re the Gernsheim and Reinecke. Thank you.

[semloh]

Marvellous! Thanks, again, Mark! 

[Mark Thomas]

Continuing the German Music uploads, I've now added Wilhelm Berger's magnificent Second Symphony. This is one of the most impressive works of late romanticism in my view and the only thing which has prevented me posting the work before now is the poor recording. However, it's best that you judge for yourself as I do believe that the quality of the music will quickly make you forget the muddy acoustic.

If anyone out there has a better recording of the is broadcast then I would dearly love to hear it.

[Holger]

Ilja,

thanks for your upload of Max Butting's music to Walter Ruttmann's Opus 1. I should add two details: from all I know, this is not called "Lustspiel" but "Lichtspiel", literally "Light-Play", so a play with lights or light effects. In Butting's own work list, this piece is listed as "Lichtspielmusik" for String Quintet, Op. 23 (1921).

As a result of my recent uploads, I hear music by Butting in my mind almost any time this weekend! Given all the positive reactions on his music here, I think I will share more by him in some days.

[Amphissa]

I've been away, traveling for a week, so just now taking a look at the most recent uploads.

Mark, I have a copy of the Berger Symphony No. 2 that (to my ears) is better than yours. The same forces, just a cleaner recording. My recording also does not clip off the opening fanfare, as yours does. The downside of having a cleaner recording is that the poor playing by the Bremen band is more apparent. haha

You are right. This is a very good symphony and deserves better than it has received on record.

I'll upload my copy as an alternate for everyone.

In my notes, the Berger Symphony No. 2 is noted as 1900. I'm not sure where my date came from. Is the date you attached to the symphony from a documented source? If so, I'll change mine.

[Lionel Harrsion]

The downside of having a cleaner recording is that the poor playing by the Bremen band is more apparent. haha

You are right. This is a very good symphony and deserves better than it has received on record.

Thanks to Mark and Amphissa for these downloads.  Each new piece of Berger's I encounter makes me wonder more quite why he is so  unsung; apart from the op 94 Trio, I can find no commercial CDs of any of his works, which strikes me as bizarre.  With no disrespect to any colleague here, there are many composers with dedicated advocates on this forum who are, in my opinion, far more deserving of unsung status than Berger. 

Some, at least, of the 'poor playing by the Bremen band' should be laid at the door of Herr Bernbacher, not the least of whose faults is that he seems incapable of 'playing it straight', rather than pulling the beat about all over the place for no apparent reason -- even when he gets the basic tempo right (which he doesn't in either of the outer movements!)  However, in spite of all these shortcomings, it's clear to me that Berger has has things to say as well as the technique to be able to say them in individual and absorbing ways. The best praise I can give to an unfamiliar piece of music is that it holds my complete attention from first to last and this symphony passes that test.

[eschiss1]

I think Berger's 2nd was published in 1912, but it clearly wasn't composed that year, and I don't know when it was. (Not a physical, can use as a coffee coaster CD, apparently, but there's a commercial -download- of a good deal of his choral music available here. Found the link in his English-language Wikipedia article.)