Heinrich Dorn

Heinrich Ludwig Egmont Dorn ( born November 14, 1804 in Königsberg, † January 10, 1892 in Berlin) was a German Romantic composer and conductor, music director and music critic.

Life and work

Dorn studied from 1823 at the Humboldt University in Berlin, first law, but devoted himself to the art of music and trained under Ludwig Berger, Bernhard Klein to the piano player as well as Bernhard Klein and Carl Friedrich Zelter for composers. Already in 1826 came his first opera, Rolands squire, to which he himself wrote the text, in Berlin with applause for the performance.

Then Dorn took it a temporary teaching job at a music institute in Frankfurt am Main and then as music director at the opera house in Königsberg. Here he brought in 1828, his second opera, The Beggar Woman (Text by Karl von Holtei ), premiered. In 1830 he received then the post of music director of the newly opened Electoral Court Theatre in Leipzig. Here he was among other things a teacher of composition by Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck and brought the ballet Cupid's power, and in 1831 his third opera, Abu Kara (Text by Ludwig Bechstein ), on the stage, but without finding special union applause.

After resolution of these theater companies joined thorn to Hamburg, where he directed the Hamburg Philharmonic temporarily. Then he went to Riga, where he was a job at the same time transferred as Director of Music and in 1836 the management of the theater orchestra, to the 1837-1839 Richard Wagner as conductor was also active in the meantime. Here organized spike in 1836, the first and highly acclaimed music festival of the Russian Baltic provinces and brought in 1838 on his fourth and everywhere repeated with applause Opera: The Alderman of Paris and in 1841 his fifth opera, The banner of England, premiered.

Beginning in 1843 moved thorn in the spectacle of Cologne and was hired here as the successor of Conradin Kreutzer as urban bandmaster and conductor of the concert Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne. Two years later he founded the Rhenish Music School, where he was also active as a teacher of composition, singing and piano playing. In the years 1844 and 1847 was thorn festival director of the Lower Rhine Music Festivals of Cologne, in which he former, Beethoven's Mass in D major for the first time in Germany completely aufführte.

After the death of Otto Nicolai's thorn was appointed in 1849 in Berlin as his successor as conductor and conductor at the Royal Court Theatre and in the same year as a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. He retired again in 1869, together with the title of professor with his musical director Wilhelm Taubert prematurely However, unexpectedly. Then he took another job as a lecturer at the Kullakschen Academy of Berlin and as a music critic for the New Berlin music newspaper.

Heinrich Dorn was married to Minna list, with whom he had several children. From mandrel sons had his son Alexander (1833-1901) as a piano teacher at the Berlin Academy of Music; another son, Otto (1848-1931), was, after he had in 1873 won the first prize of Meyerbeer Foundation, known by a number of effective orchestral compositions.

Works (selection)

• The Roland's squire, heroic- comic opera in two acts, op 1, (Berlin, 1826)
• Artaxarxes Overture (Berlin and Konigsberg, 1828)
• The beggar, lyrical drama in four acts, (Text: Karl von Holtei ), ( Königsberg, 1828)
• Cupid's power, ballet, (Leipzig, 1830)
• Abu Kara, romantic opera in three acts, Op 18 (Text: Ludwig Bechstein ), ( Leipzig, 1831)
• The Swan girl quartet, ( April 8, 1834 Riga )
• The alderman of Paris, comic opera in two acts ( libretto by Wilhelm August Wohlbrück ), ( Riga November 1, 1838 )
• The banner of England, Romantic opera in four acts ( Libretto: Carl Old to Walter Scott), (Riga, 1842)
• Die Nibelungen, opera in five acts, Op 73 (1854 ), ( libretto by Eduard Gerber ), which premiered on March 22, 1854 in Weimar under the direction of Franz Liszt, and which before Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, a great success was;
• A day in Russia, comic opera in two acts, (Text: Johann Christoph Green Tree after Eugène Scribe ) (Berlin, 1856),
• The messenger runners of Pirna, comic opera in three acts ( libretto by Moritz Heydrich after Mélesville ), ( Berlin, 1865)
• Thunderstorms in the sunshine, one-act operetta, ( libretto: Charles Nuitter ), ( Berlin, 1866);
• Win Festklänge, Opera (Berlin, 1866)
• Numerous songs and chants, instrumental compositions, etc., which all express a beautiful talent and efficient musical education, but still not great and general sympathies have been able to achieve.

To this end, a number of literary works such as:

• Out of my life - memories, (Berlin, 1870-72 )
• Ostracism. A court shards, (Berlin, 1875);
• Results from experiences (Berlin, 1877)
• Forays in the area of music, (Berlin, 1879)
• Quodlibert, (Berlin, 1886)