August Stradal

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August Stradal (born May 17, 1860 in Teplitz (Bohemia), † March 13, 1930 in Schönlinde ) was a German-Bohemian piano virtuoso , arranger and music teacher.

August Stradal (1860-1930)
August Stradal's grave in the Schönbüchel cemetery (Krásný Buk) in the Zweigelt family grave

Live and act

Clavichord from the estate of Stradal in the Rumburk City Museum

As the son of the lawyer Franz Stradal (1812–1879) and his wife Marie, b. Daublebsky of Sterneck , he completed high school in Litomerice and lived in since 1876 Vienna , where he at Theresianumgasse the Matura took off. Then he graduated from the Vienna Conservatory and was a student of Theodor Leschetizky , Anton Door and Anton Bruckner . As a student of Anton Bruckner, he created piano transcriptions of the composer's symphonies 1, 2, 5, 6 and 8. In the years 1884–1886 he worked with Franz Liszt in Weimar , was his last pupil and accompanied him on his travels to Budapest , Bayreuth and Rome . Franz Liszt wrote his 19th Rhapsody “Thanks to my dear friend August Stradal for his excellent interpretation. F. Liszt, Weimar 1885 “ dedicated.

In 1888 he married the singer Hildegard Stradal , b. Zweigelt (1864–1948) in Vienna. The marriage remained childless. Until 1915 the Stradals spent the summer in the "Stradal-Villa" Frauenchiemsee No. 21 (artist house) on the Fraueninsel , which his father had acquired in 1875. Together they went on extensive concert tours across Europe. He then taught in Vienna and later in Czechoslovakia . For financial reasons, the Stradals moved from Vienna to Schönlinde in 1919, where they inherited the house of a deceased aunt from Hildegard Stradal. They then lived together with the painter August Frind at Daubitzer Str. 2 (now Smetanova). In 1928 he received the State Prize of Czechoslovakia. The composer Camillo Horn (1860–1941) amicably dedicated a sonata for piano in F minor to the “piano virtuoso Mr. August Stradal” .

As an arranger of orchestral and organ music, Stradal created piano transcriptions for compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach , Ludwig van Beethoven , Dietrich Buxtehude , Franz Liszt, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Niccolò Paganini , Richard Wagner and Antonio Vivaldi . He tried to transfer the original orchestration to the piano. At the end of life he paid tribute to his two great teachers, Bruckner and Liszt, in his memoirs and in an essay. He died in Schönlinde in 1930 and was buried in the family grave of the Zweigelt family in Schönbüchel (Krásný Buk), OT von Schönlinde. His estate is in the Rumburk City Museum , where an exhibition also shows his clavichord from the first half of the 18th century, which is now used again for concerts.

On February 9, 2020, the premiere of a composition for voice and pianoforte by August Stradal took place in the Graupa hunting lodge as part of a concert. It was the setting of the Goethe poem "The Harp Player - Who Never Ate His Bread With Tears" by Wilhelm Meister , which had recently been discovered in the archive of the Richard Wagner sites in Graupa . The song could have been written as an allusion to the precarious situation of the Stradals around 1919.

Works (selection)

Cover sheet of the piano transcription by August Stradal from the First Symphony by Anton Bruckner
  • List of transcriptions for piano of works by other composers:
    • Bach: All organ concerts
    • Bach: Brandenburg Concerts No. 1 to 4
    • Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C minor for organ (BWV 549)
    • Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann: Fantasy and Fugue in A minor
    • Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann : Organ Concerto in D minor
    • Beethoven: String Quartets op.131 and op.135
    • Bruckner: Symphony No. 1 to 8
    • Buxtehude: Passacaglia in D minor
    • Buxtehude: several preludes and fugues
    • Liszt: Transcriptions of all 13 symphonic poems
    • Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor (KV 550)
    • Paganini: Bravery Studies on Topics by N. Paganini
    • Reger : Fantasy and Fugue for organ on BACH op 46th
    • Reubke: Organ Sonata on the 94th Psalm
    • Vivaldi / Bach: Organ Concerto in D minor
    • Wagner: Winter storms gave way to the happy moon, Valkyries ride and the end of the last act from Die Walküre
    • Wagner: Forest weaving from Siegfried
    • Wagner: Siegfried's Rhine trip from the prelude and funeral music from the last act from Götterdämmerung
    • Wagner: Transformation music and Good Friday magic from Parsifal
    • Wagner: Wesendonck songs
  • Own works
    • In the storm: Etude for pianoforte (based on the poem of the same name by Carl Stieler ), 1899
    • Four poems by Richard Dehmel : for a voice with accompaniment of the pianoforte, 1900
    • 6 poems by Carl Stieler: for 1 voice with accompaniment of the pianoforte, 1901
    • Artist concerts and philharmonic concerts, Teplitz, 1898–1908
    • Bravour study (No. 2), Welte-Mignon , between 1920 and 1928
    • Piano works of the New German School , 1925
    • Memories of Franz Liszt, 1929
  • Literary works
    • Franz Liszt's works - reviewed by August Stradal, Verlag Kahnt, Leipzig, 1904, 41 pp.
    • Memories of Franz Liszt, Verlag Paul Haupt, Bern-Leipzig, 1929, 175 p. (Memoirs)
    • Memories from Bruckner's recent times. In: Zeitschrift für Musik 99 (1932), no. 10, pp. 853-860.

More works, see under discussion.

literature

  • Hildegard Stradal : August Stradals Lebensbild, Verlag Paul Haupt, Bern-Leipzig, 1934

Web links

Commons : August Stradal  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ÖBL Stradal, August (1860–1930) (accessed November 11, 2017)
  2. ^ August Stradal: Memories of Franz Liszt, Verlag Paul Haupt, Bern-Leipzig, 1929, p. 55
  3. ↑ Hildegard Stradal: August Stradals Lebensbild. Publisher Paul Haupt, Bern-Leipzig, 1934, p. 79
  4. ^ City of Krásná Lípa - History (Czech) (accessed on January 9, 2018)
  5. ↑ Graupa treasure find with puzzle (accessed on February 9, 2020)
  6. ↑ PRS (Piano rare scores) transcriptions by Stradal (accessed November 11, 2017)
  7. ↑ Worldcat: 457 piano transcriptions by August Stradal (accessed November 11, 2017)
  8. ↑ International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) - 48 piano transcriptions by August Stradal (accessed November 11, 2017)
personal data
SURNAME Stradal, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Bohemian piano virtuoso, arranger (music) and music teacher
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Teplitz
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1930
Place of death Schönlinde