Max Erdmannsdörfer
Max Erdmannsdörfer ( born June 14, 1847 in Nuremberg, † February 14, 1905 in Munich) was a German conductor and composer.
Biography
Erdmannsdörfer was taught early on by his father, a music teacher and concert master of the Musikverein Nuremberg and was already ten years old his first concert. 1863 to 1867 he studied music theory, piano and violin at the Leipzig Conservatory and was 1868/69 to train in Dresden conductor. After a short time as a piano teacher in Nuremberg, he was in 1871 as a successor of Max Bruch conductor of the court orchestra Sondershausen.
There he married in 1874 the Liszt pupil and pianist Pauline Fichtner ( 1847-1916 ) and founded with her the very later became known Lohkonzerte, that he used to be one of the first of the works of the new Germans. He corresponded with Liszt and conducted on 2 July 1876, the premiere of his Symphony Hamlet in Sondershausen and maintained contacts with the composer Joachim Raff He and Pauline played in 1877 a version for two pianos of Raff's Piano Quintet ( Op. 107). Erdmannsdörfer completed after the death Raff ( 1882), whose unfinished Symphony No. 11, Op. 214. 1877 he conducted the premiere of the Overture Cervantes the Scottish composer Alexander Mackenzie in Sondershausen. When his protector, Prince Günther Friedrich Karl II, abdicated in 1880, gave Erdmannsdörfer its position on and cemented his reputation as a conductor due to shorter stays in various cities, including in the musical centers of Vienna and Leipzig.
1882 Erdmannsdörfer principal conductor of the Imperial Russian Musical Society in Moscow and professor at the Moscow Conservatory, where in 1885, the most important musical life of Moscow student orchestra Club founded. Here is a collaboration with Peter Tchaikovsky took place and he conducted several of his works, some even as world premieres: eg 1883 a revised version of the Symphony No. 1 Winter Dreams (op 13) and 1884, the Suite No. 2 and the Concert Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra (op 56) and 1886, the Manfred Symphony ( Op 58 ) is a program symphony in four images. Tchaikovsky dedicated his thanks to his 3.Orchestersuite. In Moscow Erdmannsdörfer enjoyed great success, has been honored many times ( at the farewell concert him the big star was awarded to the Stanislaus in diamonds, he received valuable gifts and was appointed to a lifelong honorary member of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (1 )), and won himself a European reputation as a conductor.
He could but 1888, when his successor to take over the insistence of Hans von Bülow, the direction of the famous artist club concerts in Bremen, do not resist. There he earned lasting merits by establishing a Municipal Orchestra with salaried musicians pensionable. In 1890 he took over also founded in 1814 Bremer Singing Academy, succeeding Carl Martin Rein Thaler. He succeeded in 1892 to unite the Academy of Music with the newly created him Philharmonic Choir, now every season led by a cycle of twelve mostly Philharmonic concerts under his direction. Again he won himself a high reputation in the progressive-minded members of the audience. Intrigues of conservative musicians and organizers, however, led in 1895 to the fact that he submitted his resignation. He left Bremen and moved to Munich, its final adopted home.
There he devoted himself to his compositions, but soon received the offer in the season 95/96 to take the concerts of the Imperial Russian Musical Society again, this time in St. Petersburg, which he could not refuse as an honorary member. He succeeded in a short time these concerts to lead to a new golden age. so that he was obliged for the next 1896/97 season. At the same time he was appointed but also as Kapellmeister at the Munich court theater and concerts of the Musical Academy and professor of conducting at the Academy of Music, which led to the end of the Russian commitment in 1897. But his work in Munich was short- lived, as he already asked in March 1898 to be relieved from all duties, which was granted to him under gracious " leaving the title of court Kapellmeister ". Neither a petition of the members of the Musical Academy continues to take over the management of their concerts, even the proffered post of Director of the Academy of Music could make up his mind to retire, reversed. For some years now it has been quiet around him, until 1901 reported the Musical weekly guest performances by Erdmannsdörfer in Madrid ( p.24 ) and Paris ( p.242 ).
In the autumn of 1903 after the death of music director Hermann Zumpe the members of the Academy of Music last minute replacement for a season searched and Porges choir club, its founder and namesake Heinrich Porges had died in April 1900 fell for the lack of competent leadership in a crisis and urgently asked for help, Erdmannsdörfer could not refuse after some initial hesitation and took over both corporations. After conducting two subscription concerts of the Musical Academy in the fall of 1903 with great success, he celebrated a triumph on 13 December 1903 the magnificent performance of the Requiem of Berlioz by the members of both associations, as well as on 27 March 1904, the St. Matthew Passion by Bach, his last of six concerts of the Musical Academy. Stay ends merit and cause for great gratitude earned the couple Erdmannsdörfer by setting up a charitable foundation on November 15, 1903 with a capital of 130,000 marks in favor of the court orchestra, which was destined to court musicians " in all involuntary emergency assistance grant " ( bihrle p.139 ). Prince Regent Luitpold gave then the " Kapellmeister Erdmannsdörfer the Knight's Cross of Merit of the Bavarian Crown" and elevated him to the peerage. As agreed, took over Felix Mottl in the fall of 1904, the management of the concerts of the Musical Academy of Max von Erdmannsdörfer, who remained faithful to the Porges - choir club, but only two weeks after a recent very successful concert, which took place on January 30, 1905 unexpectedly at the consequences of an appendectomy died.