Karl Klindworth

Karl Klindworth ( born September 25, 1830 in Hannover, † July 27, 1916 in Stolpe at Oranienburg ) was a German composer, conductor, music educator and piano virtuoso.

Life

Karl Klindworth was the son of a mechanic and entrepreneur Carl August Klindworth and Dorothea Wilhelmine (1800-1853), the daughter of Johann Thomas Hofbuchdruckers Lamminger ( 1757-1805 ). As a child, Charles was given violin lessons and taught himself to play the piano. At age 17, already a successful violinist and conductor of a traveling theater troupe, he took over in 1850 the line of the New Liedertafel in Hanover. 1852 Klindworth went to Weimar, where he took piano lessons from Franz Liszt and soon his closest disciples and friends belonged. From 1854, he lived as a pianist and piano teacher in London, where he became acquainted with Richard Wagner in 1855. This, it should be be a life devoted follower and friend. Klindworth 1868 followed the invitation Nikolai Rubinstein's a piano class at the Moscow Conservatory conduct. Here, at the same time where Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a professor of harmony, he completed the begun in his first meeting with Wagner 1855 piano transcription of the Ring of the Nibelung and a critical edition of the works of Frédéric Chopin.

After the death of Rubinstein is Klindworth was in 1882 settled in Berlin and directed 1884-1886 alternating with Joseph Joachim and Franz Wüllner the Berlin Philharmonic and the concerts of the local Wagner Society. His piano school in 1883 and a year later to the School of Music expanded in 1893, when he had delivered the line, founded by in 1881 by Xaver Scharwenka and merged since 1892, led by his brother Phillip Scharwenka Institute for Klindworth - Scharwenka Conservatory. After ending his teaching career in 1898 Klindworth remained active as a pianist and conductor, devoted himself, however, reinforced the publication of adaptations and educational works. 1907 adopted the couple Klindworth the ten year-old English orphan Winifred Williams ( a relative of Klindworths wife, Henriette Karrop ), which in 1915 Siegfried Wagner married and became after his death in 1930 director of the Bayreuth Festival.

Meanwhile, resident in Potsdam, later in the Eden Charitable fruit-growing settlement in Oranienburg, 1910 Klindworth took his leave from the concert platform.

After her death, he and his wife in Bayreuth were buried in the municipal cemetery, very near the tombs of Siegfried Wagner and Franz Liszt.

Importance

Klindworth emerged primarily as an arranger of works of Wagner and Liszt. He described the encounter and friendship with these two composers as a decisive turning point in his life. While Liszt was in piano pedagogy as a model, so Wagner as the creator of the music drama, for the Klindworth the score near the piano excerpts of Der Ring des Nibelungen, his best known works to date, produced. However, Wagner himself saw the practical benefits of machining through its high technical difficulty severely limited. In a letter to Klindworth of 14 February 1874 he declared:

No one plays but such a piano score, so as you would have thought. [ ... ] So, rather just only hint while now, the general piano player but only comes when he leaves out more than half of the notes.

In the course of the preparation of extracts for other stage works of Wagner Klindworth has later published a simplified version of the ring piano score.

With the edition of the works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Mendelssohn himself Klindworth made ​​a name for itself as a publisher. These are but nowadays, as well as his arrangements, by the converted factory understanding usually only of historical interest. Remained his piano schools Lange in use. His students included Hans von Bülow and William Mason.

Works

Piano Works

  • Concert Polonaise
  • Polonaise - Fantaisie

Arrangements and piano reductions

  • Hector Berlioz: Selection from La Damnation de Faust
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Roméo et Juliette for 2 pianos, Francesca da Rimini for piano 4 hands
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem for Piano 4 hands
  • Franz Schubert: Great C Major Symphony for 2 Pianos
  • Richard Wagner: Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Parsifal

Editions

  • Frédéric Chopin: Oeuvres complètes. 6 volumes. Moscow from 1873 to 1876.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonatas for piano. 3 volumes. Berlin 1884.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier. Mainz 1894.
  • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Songs Without Words. London 1898.

Piano schools

  • The craftsmanship in piano playing, 24 Exercises in all major and minor keys. Mainz 1897.
  • Novello 's School of Pianoforte Music. London 1902.
  • Elementary piano school. London, Mainz 1903.
  • 24 Exercises in all major and minor keys for the formation of craftsmanship in piano playing, last supplementary booklet for piano school of Bertini.

Letters and writings

  • Then and now in England. Bayreuth 1898.
  • Memory and thoughts of Karl Klindworths letters to Wahnfried. Bayreuth 1916.
  • Unpublished letters Karl Klindworths to Tchaikovsky. Berlin 1965.

Literature (selection )

  • Anton condiments: Klindworth, Karl. In: New German Biography ( NDB ). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1, pp. 75 f ( digitized ).
  • German Biographical Encyclopedia, Vol 5, ed. K. G. Sauer Verlag, co-editor. Gunter Meissner, Leipzig 1983, p 595
  • Klaus Mlynek: Klindworth, (2) Karl, in: Hannoversches Biographical Dictionary, p 200, the online version:
  • Klaus Mlynek: Klindworth, (2) Karl, in: Encyclopedia city Hannover, pp. 353f.
Kapellmeister Philipp Scharwenka Winifred Wagner William Mason (composer) Neue Deutsche Biographie Integrated Authority File
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