Peter Cornelius

Carl August Peter Cornelius ( born December 24, 1824 in Mainz, † October 26, 1874 ) was a German composer and poet.

Life

Cornelius was the son of actor couple Karl and Friederike Cornelius, his sister was the writer Auguste Cornelius.

After completion of the junior high school Cornelius debuted in Mainz at the theater and was appointed at age 19 in 1843 to court actor. In 1844 he went to Berlin to his uncle, the painter Peter von Cornelius. After several failures Cornelius gave up the profession of actor and studied from 1845 to 1849 with Siegfried Dehn composition. Already in this period that some of his chamber and church music works, but also secular songs. His most important work from this period is the Stabat Mater for soloists, chorus and orchestra from 1849, which was created as a kind of final thesis his apprenticeship with Dehn.

1851 Cornelius worked as a music critic for the magazines echo and mirror fashion in Berlin. Through the good offices of his uncle he learned in 1853 Franz Liszt know, he lived in a neighborhood in Weimar with interruptions, until 1858. Influenced by Liszt Cornelius appeared in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik vehemently for the New German School. In these years, a large part of his Catholic church music was born.

On December 15, 1858 experienced Cornelius 's opera The Barber of Baghdad premiered. , Led by Franz Liszt performance came to a head, as opponents Liszt disturbed the performance. This failure took Cornelius as an opportunity in 1859 to go to Vienna, where he met Friedrich Hebbel and Richard Wagner. " Sinnige and mild limitation and attachment of Wagner in his prime has been won ," according to his own admission, was his goal. Cornelius remained until 1864 in Vienna and in 1865 accompanied Wagner to Munich. There he came to enjoy an honor Soldes by King Ludwig II On May 21, 1865 came Cornelius ' second opera, El Cid successfully premiered. Two years later he was called Cornelius in Munich at the newly established College of Music as a lecturer in rhetoric and harmony.

Cornelius married in 1867 in Mainz Bertha Jung. With her he had a daughter and three sons. In his native city he died on October 26, 1874 at the age of almost 50 years, standing at a window of the administration building of the Mainz shares beer brewery, at that time not yet therapierbarem diabetes mellitus. He was buried at the Mainz main cemetery.

Cornelius was an extremely prolific song composer. The basis for almost half of its songs were their own seals, which were also quite music by other composers. Cornelius described himself as a " poet composer ". The question of whether he should now be a poet or a musician or a music journalist, he was accompanied by most of his life. It is this indecision and also his modest and rather reserved nature helped that he always stood in the shadow of his contemporaries Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, whom he admired both. However, he is highly valued primarily as a composer of songs today.

Works

  • The Barber of Baghdad, comic opera (1858 )
  • Wedding Songs ( 1856)
  • Christmas op.8 (1856 )
  • El Cid (1865 )
  • Stabat mater and for soloists, chorus orchestra ( 1849)
  • Requiem soul do not forget on a text by Hebbel (1872 )
  • String Quartets
  • Gunlöd, unfinished opera in three acts (1869-1874) according to the Edda ( giantess Gunnlöd ), completion and orchestration of the sketches left behind by Waldemar von Baußnern (1906 )
  • Fair for 2 soloists, chorus and organ, strings ad lib. - D minor; CWV 91

Peter Cornelius Archive

Through his son and biographer Carl Maria Cornelius his legacy was systematically evaluated and expanded. It forms since the acquisition by the city of Mainz in 1950, the core of the Peter- Cornelius - archive at the City Library Mainz, which thus has the internationally important collection of works of the artist. The archive was developed through decades of antiquarian purchases by the city library on.

One of the most spectacular additions to the archive was made in 1999 with the release of the last great stock of music manuscripts of the composer from the Joseph Standthartner collection, the Sparkasse Mainz acquired in 1987. The estate is comprised of various materials from the musical and literary work of Peter Cornelius:

  • Music manuscripts as autographs and copies
  • Printed music (often in first editions )
  • Poems by Peter Cornelius
  • Letters to and from Peter Cornelius
  • Notebooks and diaries
  • Correspondence of the family
  • A collection of images

List of Works

  • Günther Wagner: Peter Cornelius. List of his musical and literary works. - Tutzing, Schneider, 1986, ISBN 3-7952-0455-0

Memory

  • A designed by Hugo Lederer Peter- Cornelius - bust on a composite of three Rotsandsteintrommeln round pillar stands in a green area of Mainz.
  • The Mainz Conservatory named after Peter Cornelius Peter Cornelius Conservatory of Mainz
  • A plaque on the Kupferbergterrasse Mainz reminiscent of the birthplace
  • The state of Rhineland -Palatinate honors musicians since 1951 with the Peter- Cornelius Plaque
  • In 1867 in Wien Messe ( 6th district ) was named the street after him, Cornelius and his uncle Peter von Cornelius.
  • In Mainz -Neustadt the Peter- Cornelius - square was named after him
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