August Alexander Klengel

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August Alexander Klengel

August Stephan Alexander Klengel (born June 29, 1783 in Dresden ; † November 22, 1852 there ) was a German pianist, organist and composer.

Life

August Klengel was born as the son of the landscape painter Johann Christian Klengel and received training as a musician, especially as a pianist, from an early age. a. with Johann Peter Milchmeyer (1750–1813).

When Muzio Clementi , the most important music teacher of his time, visited Dresden in 1803 , Klengel became his pupil and accompanied him on his travels. In 1805 they visited St. Petersburg with the pianist Ludwig Berger , where their paths parted. While Clementi traveled on to London, Klengel stayed in the Russian capital until 1811, partly still improving, partly teaching. From St. Petersburg he moved to the French capital Paris, where the war events in 1813 allowed him to move to Italy. In 1814 he returned to his hometown Dresden, but went to London in 1815, where he stayed until 1816. Here he received a composition commission from the Philharmonic Society and delivered the quintet for piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass (Piano Quintet)

In 1816, his appointment as royal Saxon court composer finally brought him back to his homeland, where he stayed until the end of his life, with brief interruptions to travel to Paris and Brussels. His grave is in the Eliasfriedhof in Dresden in field A 2-4.

Tomb of August Alexander Klengel in the Elias cemetery in Dresden

His piano concertos (op.4 and 29), a Grand Polonaise concertante for piano, flute, clarinet and strings (op.35), a piano trio (op.36), a fantasy for piano four hands ( op. 31), several piano sonatas (op. 1, 2 and 9), as well as various rondos, divertissements and nocturnes. Only after Klengel's death did his Canons et Fugues dans tous les tons majeurs et mineurs pour le Piano appear in 1854 . En deux parties . The style of this work, unique for its time, is based on Bach and Klengel's teacher Clementi. In it, Klengel attempts a synthesis of traditional and contemporary composition techniques. Some sentences from it approach the character piece. No. 9 in the second part of the collection is a three-part canon in Tempo di Waltz . Chopin , who visited Klengel in Dresden in 1829, expressed his appreciation for these pieces.

Sheet music editions

  • August Alexander Klengel: Canons and fugues in all major and minor keys. 2 volumes. Breitkopf and Härtel, Berlin / Brussels / Leipzig / London / New York 1910.

literature

Discography

  • Romance op.6, Anna Petrova-Forster, piano (Toccata Classics, TOCC 0417, 2018)
  • Fantaisie sur un thème russe op.23, Anna Petrova-Forster, piano (Toccata Classics, TOCC 0417, 2018)
  • 3 Romances sentimentales de caractère mélancolique op.34, Anna Petrova-Forster, piano (Toccata Classics, TOCC 0417, 2018)
  • Air suisse avec variations op.32 for violin and piano, Keiko Yamaguchi, violin, Anna Petrova-Forster, piano (Toccata Classics, TOCC 0417, 2018)
  • 6 Nocturnes op.23, Anna Petrova-Forster, piano (Toccata Classics, TOCC 0417, 2018)
  • Grand Trio Concertant op.36, Trio Klengel (Keiko Yamaguchi, Stefania Verità, Anna Petrova-Forster, Toccata Classics, TOCC 0417, 2018)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Music in the past and present. (MGG), Vol. 7, 1958, Col. 1220
  2. ↑ Axel Beer: Klengel, August (Stephan) Alexander . In The Music Past and Present. Second, revised edition, person part 10, Kassel et altera 2003, column 270.
  3. ↑ Notes in the IMSLP, Volume 2, p. 62.
  4. ^ Rink, Samson: Chopin Studies vol. 2 . Cambridge University Press, New York 1994, p. 107
personal data
SURNAME Klengel, August Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klengel, August Stephan Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pianist, organist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1783
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1852
Place of death Dresden