Carl Gottlieb Reissiger (1798-1859)
- Concertino, Op.63 (1830)
arranged for military band in 1883 by Carl Johan Mard (1852-1917)
Performers: Cindy Christensen (clarinet); Don Christensen (clarinet);
Rundfunk-Blasorchester Leipzig; Motti Miron (conductor)
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German composer, conductor and teacher. He was the eldest son of
Christian Gottlieb Reissiger, organist and choirmaster at Belzig, and
had his first violin and piano lessons from his father. At the age of
ten he was giving public piano recitals and accompanying community
hymn-singing on the organ. From 1811 to 1818 he was a pupil at the
Thomasschule in Leipzig, where he studied the piano and composition with
Schicht, the musical director, as well as taking classes in the violin,
viola and singing. He began studying theology at the University of
Leipzig; in the same year Schicht advised him to abandon these studies
in favour of a musical career, and two years later awarded him a bursary
to further his musical studies elsewhere. In 1821 Reissiger left
Leipzig for Vienna, where he took theory lessons from Salieri, and in
1822 he moved to Munich to study composition and singing with Winter. By
that time his songs and piano pieces were gaining public favour, though
he failed in his attempts to gain municipal posts at Leipzig in 1822
and Dresden in 1824. However, his first performed opera, Didone
abbandonata, was given in Dresden in 1824 under the direction of Weber
with moderate success, and Reissiger was given 500 thalers by the King
of Prussia to study the methods of musical education in France and Italy
and to advise on its reorganization in Berlin. In Rome he studied the
music of the old masters with Baini, the greatest authority of his time
on Palestrina. On his return to Berlin in 1825 he taught composition
until invited in the following year to succeed Weber as director of the
Hofoper in Dresden.
As a champion of German opera, he was at first harassed by pro-Italian
factions, but his excellent performances of Oberon and Euryanthe won him
approval, and in 1828 he was appointed Hofkapellmeister with
responsibility for sacred music, chamber music and the music for the
court theatre, a post he held until his death. Besides his activities as
Kapellmeister, his contract also obliged him to compose a mass annually
for no extra fee. The records show that in all he composed 12 Latin
masses and a Requiem during his term of office in Dresden. Under his
direction the Dresden Opera became acknowledged as the best in Germany;
in 1842 he gave the first performance of Wagner’s Rienzi and in 1843
welcomed its composer as second Kapellmeister. Relations between the two
men deteriorated when Reissiger declined to set Wagner’s libretto Die
hohe Braut, after which Wagner portrayed him, apparently quite falsely,
as a philistine opponent of his progressive artistic views. Wagner was
probably entirely responsible for this deterioration in the relationship
between the two musicians; in fact in 1852, three years after Wagner’s
flight from Dresden, Reissiger was planning to revive Tannhäuser there.
Moreover, a textual analysis of Reissiger's sole oratorio, David, has
revealed that the Bible texts were altered to form a tribute to the King
of Saxony – something guaranteed to set the revolutionary Wagner
against Reissiger. Reissiger was noted as a gifted conductor – in 1851
he was appointed principal Kapellmeister in recognition of his
achievements, and in 1854 Berlioz wrote of the high standard of the
Dresden orchestra – and he was also regularly called upon to direct
music festivals, adjudicate at competitions and advise on musical
education. Clara Schumann was one of his theory pupils, and Gustav
Merkel and Joachim Raff also studied with him.
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