Albert Lortzing (1801-1851)
- Thema und Variationen für Trompete und Orchester
Performers: Helmut Hunger (1929-2011, trumpet); The Angelicum Orchestra; Alberto Zedda (1928-2017, conductor)
Further info: Art of the Trumpet
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German singer and composer. His parents were actors, and the wandering
life led by the family did not allow him to pursue a methodical course
of study. He learned acting from his father Johann Gottlieb Lortzing
(1776-1841), and music from his mother Charlotte Sophie Seidel
(1780-1846) at an early age. After some lessons in piano with Griebel
and in theory with Rungenhagen in Berlin, he continued his own studies,
and soon began to compose. On 30 January 1823, he married the actress
Rosina Regina Ahles (1799-1854) in Cologne; they had 11 children. In
1824 he wrote his stage work, the Singspiel Ali Pascha von Janina, oder
Die Franzosen in Albanien, which was not premiered until 4 years later
(Münster, 1828). He then brought out the Liederspiel Der Pole und sein
Kind, oder Der Feldzuebel vom IV. Regiment (1832) and the Singspiel
Szenen aus Mozarts Leben (1832), which were well received on several
German stages. From 1833 to 1844 he was engaged at the Municipal Theater
of Leipzig as a tenor. His light opera Die beiden Schützen was first
performed there on 1837, with much success. It was followed there by the
work that is now considered his masterpiece, Zar und Zimmermann, oder
Die zwei Peter (1837). It was performed with enormous success in Berlin
(1839), and then in other European music centers. His next opera,
Caramo, oder Das Fischerstechen (1839), was a failure; there followed
Hans Sachs (1840) and Casanova (1841), which passed without much notice;
subsequent comparisons showed some similarities between Hans Sachs and
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, not only in subject matter, which was
derived from the same source, but also in some melodic patterns;
however, no one seriously suggested that Wagner was influenced by
Lortzing's inferior work. There followed a comic opera, Der Wildschutz,
oder Die Stimme der Natur (1842), which was in many respects one of the
best that Lortzing wrote, but its success, although impressive, never
equaled that of Zar und Zimmermann.
At about the same time, Lortzing attempted still another career, that of
opera impresario, but it was short-lived; his brief conductorship at
the Leipzig Opera (1844-45) was similarly ephemeral. Composing remained
his chief occupation, and he wrote Undine in Magdeburg (1845) and Der
Waffen schmied in Vienna (1846). He then went to Vienna as conductor at
the Theater an der Wien, but soon returned to Leipzig, where his light
opera Zum Grossadmiral was first performed (1847). The revolutionary
events of 1848 seriously affected his position in both Leipzig and
Vienna; after the political situation became settled, he wrote the opera
Rolands Knappen, oder Das ersehnte Gluck (1849). Although at least 4 of
his operas were played at various German theaters, Lortzing received no
honorarium, owing to a flaw in the regulations protecting the rights of
composers. He was compelled to travel again as an actor, but could not
earn enough money to support his large family, left behind in Vienna. In
the spring of 1850 he obtained the post of conductor at Berlin's
nondescript Friedrich-Wilhelmstadt Theater. His last score, the comic
opera Die Opernprobe, oder Die vornehmen Dilettanten, was premiered in
Frankfurt am Main on 20 January 1851, while he was on his deathbed in
Berlin; he died the next day. Lortzing also wrote an oratorio, Die
Himmelfahrt Jesu Christi (1828), and some incidental music to various
plays, but it is as a composer of characteristically German Romantic
operas that he holds a distinguished, if minor, place in the history of
dramatic music. He was a follower of Weber, without Weber's imaginative
projection; in his lighter works, he approached the type of French
operetta; in his best creations he exhibited a fine sense of facile
melody, and infectious rhythm; his harmonies, though unassuming, were
always proper and pleasing; his orchestration, competent and effective.
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