Ludwig Berger (composer)

Carl Ludwig Heinrich Berger ( born April 18, 1777 in Berlin, † February 16, 1839 ) was a German composer, pianist and piano teacher.

Life

His childhood spent Berger initially in Templin (Uckermark), later in Frankfurt ( Oder), where he attended high school from 1795 and the university. From 1799, he received a musical education with bassist and later royal Kapellmeister Joseph Augustin Gürrlich ( 1761-1817 ) in Berlin. 1801 Berger traveled to Dresden to continue his musical studies with the most famous Johann Gottlieb Naumann, who was but died shortly before his arrival. In Dresden Berger developed a close friendship with the painter Philipp Otto Runge. 1803 Berger went back to Berlin, where he settled as a piano teacher.

1804 Muzio Clementi came with his pupil Alexander Klengel August in Berlin. Clementi, who no longer performed in public since 1786, was accompanied on his travels more often by young pianists who publicly aufführten his piano works in his senses. Even in 1804 traveled to Italy Clementi on, while Berger and Klengel in Berlin preparing for a concert tour together with Clementi, which began in September 1805 and led to Saint Petersburg. Until 1812 Berger worked there successfully as a pianist and piano teacher. In economically secure position he could 1808 finally remember to marry his long-time fiancée Wilhelmina Berlin Karges. He traveled her from Petersburg to meet to Courland, where the wedding took place. Ten months later, he lost his young wife in childbirth. In this stroke of fate the cause of his subsequent melancholy and hypochondria is occasionally seen. He has not remarried, but much later in Berlin once again attempted to start a family: in 1817 he was about to bring a marriage proposal from a friend Luise Hensel, however, as well as other candidate was rejected. The highly educated and attractive Luise Hensel has never married, she has dedicated her life religious ideals in the context of educational and charitable tasks especially in the bosom of the Catholic Church. In 1812, Berger has joined the great exodus from the advancing troops of Napoleon. About Stockholm, where he performed successfully, he came to London, where in the meantime Clementi had settled and took his. After two successful years as a pianist and piano teacher in London, he returned in 1814 (not 1815 as often stated erroneously ) to Berlin, where he appeared in public for the last time on 20 November 1814. Berger was his own organizer, probably to make known to be in Berlin. He lived at that time still in the Hotel de Bourg fire ( where you could in the No. 10, the concert tickets for one thaler purchase from him. ). The concert is announced in the Berlinischen news, Spenersche newspaper on November 19, 1814: "Vocal and instrumental concert in the hall of the Royal. Schauspielhaus given by Mr. Ludwig Berger ". He played on a brought from London "wing Fortepiano " an overture, his Piano Variations "Ah, vous dirai - ever," composed about 10 years ago and until 1841 published as op.32, as well as his "Concert for Fortepiano " ( also posthumously as op 34 printed). In addition rang works by Paer, Simon Mayr and Mattäi, for which he had engaged vocal and instrumental soloists of the city. The criticism in the AmZ ( " Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung musical " ), born in 16, 881 Sp praises his "finished, safe game Clemen Phonetic school ... Gorgeous, light manner of touching the keys, admirable Applicatur ... Great skill of left hand. "

The intellectual life of Berlin flourished in this period, especially in the bourgeois salons of the city, to which Berger quickly gained access as a musical authority. So he played in the New Year's Eve 1814/1815 in the Salon of Superintendent Julius Eduard Hitzig, where it ETA Hoffmann heard ( description of Hoffmann: The Adventures of the New Year's Eve night, 1 mistress from: Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner, is here he was still " a foreign virtuoso, called Berger "). In one of these salons, at the Council of State Friedrich August von Staegemann, Berger met the young poet Wilhelm Müller know. The salon initially led Staegemanns wife Elizabeth, later their daughter Hedwig, in the premises of the ' Prussian Seehandlung ' in the Jägerstr. 21 In addition to Berger and Mueller were, inter alia, Luise Hensel and her brother, the painter Wilhelm Hensel (later the brother of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy ), Clemens Brentano and Graf von Gneisenau Neithardt guests of this salon. As part of the usual in these salons literary games with the motto "Rose, the miller's wife " came 1816, the first poems of the later cycle " The Beautiful Miller " by Wilhelm Müller, which Berger contributed the music long before Müller's collection of poems, their final form found, which was then set to music in 1823 by Franz Schubert. Bergers cycle, first published in 1818 in the Berliner Verlag Christiani as Op 11 under the title songs from a social songs Games ' The Beautiful Miller ', consists of ten songs, five of which are based on texts miller in the role of the miller's apprentice. The rest come from other guests of the lounges in the following roles: Rose, the miller's ( Hedwig of Staegemann ), Hunter ( Wilhelm Hensel ), gardener's boy ( Luise Hensel ), Junker ( Friedrich Förster ). In addition, there were other poems of the miller's admirers, including a fisherman, Berger has not taken into account. Wilhelm Müller which solved the concatenation of his poems of the other members of the circle before his departure for Italy in August 1817 and was a first version of the cycle of 15 poems for publication. The final shape with 25 songs that Schubert also served as a model, who chose 20 poems for his miller - cycle, first appeared as part of the collection " 77 Poems from the posthumous papers of a traveling horn player " in 1821.

Berger was at this time the most sought after piano teachers of his time. His reputation spread far beyond the boundaries of the city of Berlin. His most prominent piano students was the young Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who is a student of Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758-1832) was a composer, the informant Goethe in music. Zelter in Berlin, a so-called " Liedertafel " founded in 1808, a men's choir, who had given so elitist membership rules that Berger had tried in vain for admission. In response, Berger founded together with Bernhard Klein, Ludwig Rellstab and Gustav Reichardt 1819 "Younger Liedertafel to Berlin", the more opened to the outside, and thus gave an important impetus for the large male chorus movement of the 19th century. In 1822, Berger came into Zelter's Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, a, which is a sign that it has come between him and campers because of the Liedertafel problem no conflicts. Rather Zelter was admitted as an honorary member of the younger Liedertafel in autumn 1819. In a letter to Goethe dated March 1830, states: " It now gives here in Berlin at least four songs boards, of which mine is not the best ... In contrast, the zweyte Liedertafel, in fact, is the best; it consists of young people with good voices: songs they make to this effect and good older songs is not a defect. I confess frankly that I am as us bey rather be here. "

Berger last lived in the Old Jakobstr. 9, where he had moved from the French street from 5. Sooner rather sickly, it was, according to him Rellstab better health in recent times. All the more surprising was his sudden death. He died while he was teaching a blind student. With great sympathy of his students and friends, he was buried on 20 February 1839 the Hallischen cemetery.

Works

Berger's compositional work has focused on three main genres: song, male choir and piano music. From his contemporaries he was particularly valued as a song composer. Here he has the strict verse form of the so-called 2nd Berlin school songs of the 18th century broken in favor of increased expressiveness by the piano accompaniment integrated into the melody flow and using the harmonies, the interpretation of the text has been intensified as a mood support. In piano music, the small forms that he has left only once convincingly dominate, namely with his inspired by Beethoven sonata op pathétique 1 in C minor (1804 ). In addition to variations works especially his two collections Etudes Op 12 (1816 ) and Op, 22 (1836 ) very common. The Etudes Op 12 were launched again and again until the 20th century. They are characterized by a poetic style, lyrical piano pieces and, as already pointed out Robert Schumann, actually " Songs without Words ", the Mendelssohn Bartholdy pointed the way to his eponymous compositions. Berger has tried on large forms (eg Piano Concerto ), but with little luck. He was a master of small forms and outstanding representative of the Berlin Biedermeier on the cusp of the northern German Romanticism.

Assignment

Ludwig Berger had a same contemporaries, also known as Ludwig K. Berger and Ludwig Berger ( singer) (1774 (?) -1828 ) Published. He last lived in Karlsruhe and wrote his most popular songs with guitar accompaniment. In some publications, the works are both mapped incorrectly. (see Dieter Siebenkäs: Twice Ludwig Berger, in: The Music Research, XVIII born in 1965, Barenreiter -Verlag Kassel and Basel, pp. 185-187. )