August Conradi
August Eduard Moritz Conradi (* June 27, 1821 in Berlin, † May 26, 1873 ) was a German composer, organist and conductor.
Life
By no later than 1840 Conradi studied at the Berlin Royal. Academy in August Wilhelm Bach composition, organ and piano, as well as Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen general bass and counterpoint. Between 1840 and 1842 he has won several awards for his trial successes. In 1843 he went to the post of organist at the Church of Berlin Invalides.
In the following years the sporadic collaboration with Franz Liszt, which began with Conradi's first stay in Weimar early 1844 fell. Perhaps they had both already 1841/42 met when Liszt in Berlin celebrated triumphs. Conradi had at this time the greater experience in the instrumentation, which is why Liszt jointly drafted the scores his first orchestral works with him. With interruptions this collaboration lasted until 1849. 1847 Liszt had Conradis Gypsy Polka for Piano edited. As Conradi, after a short conducting activities at the Thalia Theatre, a Berlin amateur stage, in 1849 began his career as a theater conductor at the Szczecin City Theatre, Joachim Raff took his place at Liszt.
In 1849 also the first collaboration was with the text author David Kalisch, a master of the Berlin Posse, at the Friedrich- Wilhelm Municipal Theater in Berlin. It marks Conradi's final and exclusive devotion to light entertainment and the beginning of a fruitful and successful career as an opera composer. The following stations were the king Municipal Theater in Berlin ( February 1851 ), the Dusseldorf Opera House (July 1851), Kroll's establishment in Berlin (later the Kroll Opera House ) ( 1852) and the Cologne Municipal Theatre (1852 /53). Then Conradi finally returned to Berlin, first back to Kroll, before 1855 at the Wallner Theatre has been working for a long time as Kapellmeister for the first time. 1864 finally he followed them by the Darmstadt Joseph Nesvadba as Kapellmeister at the Victoria Theatre opened in 1859 after.
Up to the end of his life respected as a musician and as a person Conradi was restlessly active. In addition to his success as an opera composer, it was mainly his dances, marches, medleys and songs for the bourgeois salons of Berlin, with whom he was able to acquire a considerable fortune that would fall after the death of his widow in accordance with instructions of the Berlin club asylum.
Works
After promising a full launch as a composer of so-called " serious music " ( symphonies, chamber music ), he wrote stage works, comic primarily operas, farces, burlesques, farces and magic tales, songs and also couplets that were popular in some cases. Among his many instrumental works can be found in addition to the mentioned marches, polkas and potpourris and fantasies about contemporary opera themes.
He was a leading composer of the local Berlin Posse and worked with renowned librettist as Adolph L' Arronge, OF Berg, Carl Görlitz, Edward Jacobson, David Kalisch and Heinrich Wilken successfully. Their antics, comical, burlesque, etc. were cut in the first line to the spirit of the Prussian metropolis. Subjects were all aspects of the political and social environment that were illuminated critical or parodic. They reflected to the same extent the terms of the everyday life of ordinary people as the current social conditions of the time were certainly also critically examined. The need for such pieces was great and it was not uncommon when they experienced more than 200 performances.
Conradi was a diligent, prolific composer, although his stage music sometimes consisted of only a few strophic vocal numbers with short pre and interludes. Thanks to its popularity, some were still sung in the 20th century, such as " heart my darling under vine roof " from the popular play " Berlin, as it weeps and laughs " (1858 ) by OF, and David Kalisch.