Alexander Albrecht

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Alexander Albrecht (* 12. August 1885 in Arad / Kingdom of Hungary , now Romania , † July 30 , June 30 or the 30th August 1958 in Bratislava ) was a Slovak composer and musician.

Life

Alexander Albrecht attended the Royal Catholic Gymnasium from 1895 to 1903 after his family moved from Arad to Pressburg (today's Bratislava) in 1887. His classmates included Franz Schmidt , Ernst von Dohnányi and Béla Bartók , with whom he made a lifelong friendship here. His father was the high school professor and later curator of the municipal museum in Pressburg Ján Albrecht. His mother Maria von Vaszary (* 1864, † 1913) came from a Hungarian family of artists and was the niece of the Archbishop of Gran ( Esztergom ) and prince-primate of Hungary Kolos Ferenc Vaszary . Her cousin János Vaszary was an important Hungarian painter. The nephew Gábor von Vaszary (1897–1985) was a well-known writer and screenwriter.

Alexander Albrecht first received music lessons from his mother, later from the organist Carl Forstner . In high school he made friends with Béla Bartók , who was four years his senior and who also taught him. He soon played at school services, as did Bartók and Ernst von Dohnányi, who also attended grammar school . From 1904 to 1908 he studied at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest as a student with Hans Koessler (composition), Ferenc Sandtner (conducting class) and David Popper (chamber music). At the same time he also studied Jus . He later refined his playing with Rudolf Dittrich in Vienna . When Albrecht returned to Pressburg in 1908, he accepted the position of organist in the Pressburg St. Martin's Cathedral . In 1918 he married the foreign language teacher Margarethe von Fischer (1887–1985). Margarethe von Fischer came from a long-established German bourgeois family in Pressburg. One of her ancestors, Johann Fischer, founded the first sparkling wine cellar in what was then the Kingdom of Hungary.

Grave of Alexander Albrecht in the Andreas Cemetery in Preßburg (Bratislava)

After his training, Alexander Albrecht worked as a music teacher at the city music school (Mestská hudobná škola). After the death of the conductor and Bruckner pupil Eugen Kossow , in 1921 he took up the position of Regens Chori and director of the church music association at St. Martin , one of the most important music institutions in the city of Pressburg. For decades, this association, with the participation of important international artists, performed works not only of sacred but also secular music.

Albrecht's musical style was rooted in the German romantic tradition. Johannes Brahms and Max Reger in particular had a strong influence on him. Chamber music ( piano quintet, string quartet in D major) and his lieder formed a key position in his work :

(Selection)

  • Rose season,
  • A szépség himnusza [ Eng . 'The Hymn of Beauty']
  • The Life of Mary : Three Songs (based on texts by Rainer Maria Rilke )
  • Quietly moves through my mind (after Heinrich Heine )
  • The fisherman (after JW Goethe )
  • Spring lust
  • Goodbye
  • Esküvö [ Eng . 'The wedding]

The end of the Second World War also marked a turning point for the Albrecht family. As people of German origin, the Albrechts were also persecuted and driven from their comfortable house (at Schiffergasse 12). The Catholic clergy of St. Martin found this unjustified, however, they held their protective hand over their Regens Chori and offered Alexander Albrecht and his relatives one of their own properties in the Preßburger Kapitelgasse No. 1. Alexander Albrecht lived in this house until his death. As he got older, the worst curse for a musician fell upon him: he became deaf and blind . Seeing no way out of this situation, he committed suicide on August 30, 1958, shortly after his 73rd birthday. His remains were buried in the Pressburg Andreas Cemetery.

Appreciation

Memorial plaque in Bratislava German translation: The composer and conductor of the church music association at St. Martin's Cathedral, Professor Alexander Albrecht (1885 - 1958), and his son, the musicologist and pedagogue Professor Johann Albrecht (1919 - 1996) lived and worked in this house .

A plaque commemorating him and his son was placed on the family's former home on Kapitulská ulica in Bratislava. This is also registered on the list of cultural monuments of the Slovak Republic.

See also

literature

  • P. Rainer Rudolf, Eduard Ulreich: Karpatendeutsches Biographisches Lexikon. Working Group of Carpathian Germans from Slovakia, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-927096-00-8 , p. 17.
  • Ján Albrecht: Spomienky bratislavského hudobníka, Bratislava 1998, ISBN 80-967026-8-8 (Slovak; a German edition was published in 1998 under the title Memories of a Pressburg Musician by the Hans Schneider publishing house in Tutzing )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dnešný deň v dejinách on SME.sk accessed on December 27, 2012
  2. ↑ Alexander Albrecht in the Bavarian Musicians' Lexicon Online (BMLO)
  3. ↑ Alexander Albrecht ( Memento from April 18, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  4. ↑ The marriage gave birth to their son Johann Albrecht , who also became a musician.
  5. ↑ Johann Fischer was honored by Emperor Franz II for his services . raised to the hereditary nobility.
  6. ↑ The Pressburg " Champagne Factory " was founded in 1825 by Johann Fischer and Dr. Michael Schönbauer founded. The building stood on the country road (since 1930 "Radlinského") under the number 257 at that time. In 1840 10,000 bottles of sparkling wine were already produced. The company passed into the possession of 'Hubert and Habermann' in 1877. Today no sparkling wine is produced in Bratislava, but the name "Hubert" is still used as a brand name in Slovakia. (Quoted from Anton Klipp: Preßburg - New Views on an Old City. Karlsruhe / Stuttgart 2010, p. 88.)
  7. ↑ The Pressburg Church Music Association near St. Martin was founded in 1833 and was considered the most important music association in the city of Pressburg. (Quoted from Anton Klipp: Preßburg - New Views on an Old City. Karlsruhe / Stuttgart 2010, p. 121.)
  8. ↑ The association was forcibly dissolved during the communist era in 1952.
personal data
SURNAME Albrecht, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Slovak composer and musician
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Arad
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: June 30, 1958 or July 30, 1958 or August 30, 1958
Place of death Bratislava