Adelheid Maria Eichner

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Adelheid Maria Eichner (* 1762 in Mannheim ; † April 5, 1787 in Potsdam ) was a German composer , singer and pianist who was known for her fine three- octave singing voice and singing technique during her short life .

life and career

Adelheid Eichner was the only child of the bassoonist and composer Ernst Eichner and his wife, Maria Magdalena Ritter. She was born in Mannheim and grew up in Zweibrücken .

Her father was employed in the court orchestra of Duke Christian IV von Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld from autumn 1762 to November 1772 . In Mannheim she received singing lessons from an older Italian castrato from a good school, while her father presumably gave her piano lessons. Her father traveled to concerts in Paris and London and in August 1773 had taken up his position in the court orchestra of the Prince of Prussia . At the end of 1773, she and her mother joined her father in Potsdam.

From 1773 Adelheid was employed with her father as the only German singer in the court orchestra. As the Prince's “Cammer Singer”, she appeared in public concerts in Berlin from 1777, and at the Berlin Royal Opera from 1781 . From 1782 she became a permanent member of the opera and sang leading roles in opera seria performances.

Adelheid Eichner first became known as a composer in 1780, when her 12 songs with melodies for the piano were published in Potsdam. This collection is your only surviving work and contains one of the earliest Goethe songs, a setting of Jäger's night song . Although expressive, the songs are instrumental in design, regardless of the natural melody of their lyrics. Further individual songs were printed in musical almanacs until 1792. Eichner set poems by Gottfried August Bürger and Johann Daniel Overbeck as well as the Dutch General von Stamford, who was tutor at the court of the Prince of Prussia from around 1775 to 1786 and, according to Zelter , was engaged to her.

Adelheid Eichner died in Potsdam in 1787 at the age of only 24.

reception

Eichner received considerable recognition for her vocal technique across her entire three-octave range. The Freiburg Musikalische Taschenbuch of 1784 praised her piano playing and claimed that she performed "with the same ease and skill [as she sings], and her father's sensitive spirit seems to rest on her, especially when it comes to questions of performance."

As a composer, Adelheid Eichner was criticized for having difficulties effectively combining words and music. Critics claimed that her compositions were more effective instrumentally than vocal.

Works (selection)

  • 2 songs with melodies for the piano (1780)
  • I only had a little lamb (1783)
  • Make me of the people (1781–82)
  • Of the dreams
  • Song of a girl

literature

  • CF von Ledebur , Tonkünstler-Lexicon Berlin's from the oldest times to the present , p.130
  • Wilhelm Rintel, Carl Friedrich Zelter. A biography , p.135ff

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Marianne Reissinger: Eichner, Adelheid Maria . In: Oxford Music Online . Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  2. ^ Petra Ludwig: Eichner, Adelheid (Maria) . In: Laurenz Lütteken (Hrsg.): The music in past and present (MGG) . Kassel, Stuttgart, New York 2001 ( mgg-online.com ).
  3. ↑ Hunter's Night Song
  4. ^ Julie Anne Sadie, Rhian Samuel: The Norton / Grove Dictionary of Women Composers . WW Norton & Company, 1994, ISBN 978-0-393-03487-5 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  5. ↑ a b c Barbara Garvey Jackson: Say can you deny me: a guide to surviving music by women from the 16th through the 18th centuries . University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, AR 1994, ISBN 1-55728-303-6 , pp. 153 (English).
  6. ↑ Barbara Garvey Jackson: Songs of Maria Adelheid Eichner, Juliane Reichardt (born Benda), Corona Schröter, and Maria Theresia von Paradis . Clar Nan Ed., 1997 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Eichner, Adelheid Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH April 5, 1787
Place of death Potsdam