Bogumil Zepler

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Bogumil Zepler, sketch by Moritz Coschell , Le Figaro illustré , 1907

Bogumil Zepler (born May 6, 1858 in Breslau , † August 17, 1918 in Krummhübel ) was a German composer . His song, operetta and opera compositions are largely forgotten today and are rarely sung or performed.

life and work

At the request of his parents, Zepler initially studied medicine in his birthplace , but after completing his doctorate he turned to music , which had interested him since early childhood.

After the death of his father, Zepler and his mother moved to Berlin , where he acquired musical foundations from Heinrich Urban , a well-known composition teacher and music consultant for the Vossische Zeitung .

In 1891 a chamber orchestra at the Wallner Theater performed Zepler's first composition: The Berlin Brewery Honor - Cavalleria Berolina , a parody of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria! . In the following year his one-act comic opera Der Brautmarkt zu Hira came on stage in the Kroll Opera .

In these two works the cheerful side of the author's talent was evident. But in the following piece, the full-length comic opera The Viscount of Letorières , 1898 in Hamburg their premiere experienced, even the lyrical music came to the fore. Bogumil Zepler not only committed to cheerful music, but also created compositions in the dramatic style of the New Italian school with the one-act night - based on models by the Italian-Swiss baritoneist Mario Leone Fumagalli - and with the pantomime Die Galgenzeit (based on Wolzogen's material).

In all of Zepler's works, however, the melodic, cheerful and graceful predominate, which was subsequently performed in the Colorful Theater ( Überbrettl ) founded by Woliehen . The audience liked his catchy vocal numbers like Laufmädel , Königssohn , Pfaffenkutten , Gelbstern , Das Lied vom Mädel and others. Zepler's growing reputation was also due to the success of this company. His songs were now gladly performed by other singers, who also prompted him to always new compositions.

Other compositions include songbooks, the ballet - Suite devil Fair for large orchestra, a ballet-pantomime (after a fabric of H. rule) and the one-act operetta Diogenes (with a libretto by Julius friend) . This operetta had its world premiere in the Central Theater in Berlin . Added to this were the operas Hansel and Gretel (1894), Die Liebesfestung (Berlin, 1905), The Baths of Lucca (Berlin, 1905, based on Heinrich Heine ), Lohengrin (1905) and Monsieur Bonaparte (Leipzig, 1911). After the successes in the Überbrettl , Zepler had other parodic compositions follow, such as Wenn he Die Willumitzer'sche Neue Lorelei , Das Lied vom kühnen Kohn im Kahn , König von Yvetot or The Rohrpostbrief , which he usually presented first to visitors in Colster's restaurant at Kantstrasse 8 .

Zepler, who had moved into his apartment in Berlin at Olivaer Platz 4 around 1900 , published a complete piano reduction of the incidental music for Der böse Geist Lumpacivagabundus by Johann Nestroy in 1903 and was thus one of the first to seriously devote himself to this genre. Between 1906 and 1918 he published Musik für Alle . These monthly issues for the maintenance of folk music were published by Ullstein & Co. and Zepler knew how to bring the readers closer to musical works for the stage, and he also made the composers' biographies accessible to a wide range of interested parties. In the last years of his life, Zepler, who was Jewish by origin , turned to the themes of Judaism and composed, for example, a psalmody for violin, harp and organ or the Sabbath song lecho daudi in a completely new oriental style. She lived until the end of his life Family then in Wilmersdorf , at Prinzregentenstrasse 79.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Vossische Zeitung , Berlin, around 1915 (the exact date in the excerpt has not survived).
  2. ↑ Bogumil Zepler and Adelheid Wette (author): Hansel and Gretel . 1894 ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.amazon.de
  3. ↑ Otto Keller, a contemporary of Zepler, gave the following assessment of the love fortress : "... he shows dramatic invention, which, however, leans too much towards the light genre in his operas too."
  4. ↑ Heft Lohengrin by Bogumil Zepler on amazon.de
  5. ↑ Brief information on Zepler in the Volksliederarchiv.
  6. ↑ Karin Plog: When notes learned to run ... ; BoD, 2015, pp. 237-239.
  7. ↑ 23. Theater and Music . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1910, Part II., Newspapers and Magazines, p. 258.
  8. ^ Liebmann, pp. 222/223.
  9. ↑ Zepler, M. Widow . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1920, I, p. 3183.
personal data
SURNAME Zepler, Bogumil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH August 17, 1918
Place of death Krummhübel