Carl Amand Mangold

Carl Amand Mangold with a beard

Carl Ludwig Amadeus Mangold (born October 8, 1813 in Darmstadt , † August 4, 1889 in Oberstdorf ) was a German composer and conductor .

Life

Mangold comes from an old family of musicians in Darmstadt. The original home of the family is Groß-Umstadt in the Odenwald. His musical talent, inherited from generations, was trained at an early age by his father, the Grand Ducal Court Music Director and Court Bandmaster Georg Mangold , by his brother, the composer and Court Bandmaster Wilhelm Mangold and by his sister, the singer Charlotte Mangold in violin playing, in composition and in singing through the regular quartet evenings in the parents' house, where Ludwig van Beethoven was particularly cared for.

Mangold's sister Charlotte enjoyed their lessons when Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer were in Darmstadt. She was trained as a singer in Vienna . She later passed on her singing skills to the brothers. Also Abt Vogler and Christian Heinrich Rinck were among the musical teachers of the siblings.

The musical talents of the family culminated in the son Carl Amand, the last in the line of 14 children. He was born in the same year as Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi , on October 8th, eight days before the Battle of Leipzig began . Napoleon's supremacy, along with the Confederation of the Rhine, had collapsed at that time , and Father Georg grieved. Mangold, however, later became a Greater German patriot. He propagated German unity with musical means .

At the age of seventeen in 1831 he joined the Grand Ducal Court Orchestra in Darmstadt, which was led by his brother Johann Wilhelm. He found further inspiration in artists such as Anton Bohrer , Paganini , Henri Herz , Clara Wieck , Henri Vieuxtemps and Margarethe Stockhausen geb. Schmuck, the mother of Julius Stockhausen , also in art-loving Darmstadt houses like that of the Minister von Falck, the bookseller Leske, the Dr. Huth and finally when he visited concerts in nearby Frankfurt am Main, but especially during a trip to London in 1834, where the Handel festivals had a great influence on him, as well as the Italian opera and the madrigal companies.

In 1835, after the death of his father, Mangold appeared as a singer for the first time in Darmstadt, in a concert by the mandolin virtuoso Vimercati . From then on, he often appeared as a soloist in concerts, both as a violin player and as a singer, and also performed his own compositions. He published his first songs and devoted himself to the instrumental composition of symphonies, quartets, trios and other chamber music pieces.

From 1836 to 1839 he studied composition with Henri Montan Berton , violin with Eugène Sauzay and singing with Marco Bordogni at the Conservatory in Paris directed by Luigi Cherubini . He found inspiration in the Italian Opera, where singers like Giulia Grisi , Giovanni Battista Rubini , Antonio Tamburini and Luigi Lablache shone, in habeneck orchestral concerts, in Baillot's quartet evenings and in musical houses such as that of the banker Leo, where he became the first artist met personally. Here he frequented Jacques Fromental Halévy , Giacomo Meyerbeer , Sigismund von Neukomm and Hector Berlioz , with whom he discussed his compositions, with Frédéric Chopin , Haußmann, Charles Hallé , Franz Liszt and Clara Wieck. For a long time he led a singing course founded by Abbé Mainzer for (around 800) workers, with whom he performed his composition of Victor Hugo's Patriotic Hymn and founded a German men's quartet that performed in a concert by Clara Wieck and took him to his German men's choirs "Farewell" and the later broadcast for mixed choir "Come to the Silent Night". He was also in contact with Robert Schumann by sending him regular reports on musical life in the French metropolis for his “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik”. The intended naturalization in Paris failed because he was not born on the left bank of the Rhine. So he returned to Darmstadt in 1839, where he soon took over the management of the amateur association associated with the United Society, which later became the music association. For 50 years, until his death, he stood at the conductor's desk of the "association", as he briefly referred to it. And this still lives on in the old tradition today. With him he brought the great oratorio works from Bach to Brahms to the Darmstadt audience , and for him he composed his extensive “concert dramas”, a genre specially developed by Mangold.

On October 1, 1844, Mangold married Karoline Jaup, the daughter of the Grand Ducal Hessian Prime Minister Heinrich Karl Jaup . He had six children with her. Mangold was buried in Darmstadt's Alter Friedhof (Darmstadt) (grave site: IH 68).

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In Darmstadt, Mangold was introduced to the highest circles: with Prince Emil, Prince Wittgenstein, Minister von Hofmann, with the families of Ploennies, von Goldner, von Wedekind, Rube, Hallwachs, with the Hessian Prime Minister Heinrich Karl Jaup, his later father-in-law and with his art-loving brother-in-law, the later President of the Supreme Court, Strecker, where he met Jenny Lind personally, who liked to perform his songs and made his "Zwiegesang" known as one of her favorite songs all over the world. About his double bass adagio that August Müller performed with Dr. Huth, said Hector Berlioz. Becker's “Rheinlied”, Heinrich Heine's “Fisherman's Girl” , the male choirs “My curriculum vitae is love and lust” and “Where bushes stand and trees” were widely used.

His employment as a répétiteur at the Darmstadt court theater in 1841, where he made many good friends among the singers and court musicians, inspired his first romantic opera: “The Köhler girl or the tournament in Linz”, text by Wilke. This opera was performed in 1843, where his first oratorio "Wittekind or the victory of faith", a poem by Luise von Ploennies , was performed in the Musikverein.

In the same year Mangold began his opera Tanhäuser , almost at the same time as Richard Wagner and without anyone knowing about the other . On January 6, 1845, a week after Wagner, he completed the score. Mangold's text book by Eduard Duller does not bind the Tannhauser legend with the singer's war, but with the legend of the faithful Eckart and a motif of the Pied Piper. The curse, only narrated by Wagner, is worked out into a dramatic act by Mangold. Performed several times in Darmstadt from 1848 to 1850 and later brought back to the stage by Ernst Pasqué , the Patriarch's first actor, under the title “Der Getreue Eckart”, Wagner's Tannhäuser stood in the way of its further dissemination . This was first shown in Leipzig, where Mangold's symphony cantata “Elysium” was performed at the Schiller Festival under Albert Lortzing's direction in 1845 on Mendelssohn's suggestion , and where Mangold conducted his dramatic scene “Des Mädchen Klage” at the Schiller Festival in 1846. Personal intercourse with Mendelssohn, Schumann, Niels Wilhelm Gade , Lortzing, Hauptmann and the music writer Franz Brendel was very fruitful and led to years of correspondence with the latter. But theater director Schmidt rejected the performance of "Tanhäuser" out of consideration for Wagner's relationship with Brockhaus. The rejection of the same opera in Berlin was described in accordance with the files of the Berlin Secret State Archives in the national newspaper of August 25, 1888, consistent with Mangold's notes. Ludwig Tieck , taken against Wagner's “turmoil, the soul and body fatigued to the point of dissolution”, recommended Mangold's “Tanhäuser” several times after the text book, and recommended after some impulses regarding the overly ecclesiastical layout had been removed and the music experts had spoken out favorably the king performed the modified Mangold opera. However, the performance was thwarted by the general manager von Küstner, who was a friend of Wagner's.

In his new work “Päan” opera and oratorio should be united. It was the "Hermannsschlacht", a fruit of the movement of 1848, dedicated to the Hessian Minister Heinrich von Gagern , who, as the composer wrote to him, "appeared like Hermann a savior in need". The peculiar work with a magnificent battle painting was performed in Darmstadt, Dresden, Mainz, Prague, Magdeburg and Hamburg, and Robert Schumann gave the composer, who had “captured moments of sublime enthusiasm”, the recognition of the artists, which he “deserved to be in the greatest possible measure ". It followed in 1848 Sleeping Beauty , a fairy tale with ballet, and in 1849 the opera Gudrun , who was given a detailed analysis with biography and photo of the sound poet in the Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung on June 14, 1851. Since this opera was also not widely used, Mangold turned back to the concert drama and from 1851 to 1856 created his most mature and at that time widespread work, Frithjof . He had success in 1862 with the oratorio “Abraham”, the title role of which was excellently interpreted in Darmstadt, partly by his friend Julius Stockhausen, partly by Karl Hill . "Abraham" was also enthusiastically received in Regensburg and Zofingen. “Abraham”, as biblical as the material sounds and is also real, a patriotic thought pervades him too. In the alliance with God, a leader emerges with whom the people of Israel begin. Religion becomes the pillar of the coming state, and the destruction of enemies and evildoers (Sodom) takes place with the help of God. That was a thoroughly contemporary subject, and Mangold was not alone with such biblical subjects, but joined his contemporaries who thought and wrote similarly. The best-known among them was certainly Mendelssohn, whom Mangold not only admired, but with whom he had intensive contact until Mendelssohn campaigned for Mangold's works.

Patriotism was one of the defining characteristics of Mangold, his love of nature another. It is said to have hung "with glowing enthusiasm in the German forest". And since he loved socializing, it had become a nice rule that the Musikverein, after singing a Passion Oratorio on Good Friday in the Darmstadt city church, went for a walk together the next day to get in the mood for Easter. The custom of the musical country party probably began in 1842 with a trip to Bergstrasse, when the association celebrated its tenth anniversary. The first stop was Auerbach Castle . There was a lot of singing and a barrel of wine was "solemnly blessed and tapped". Then the train moved to the prince's camp near Auerbach, where “extremely pretty, sometimes very spicy toast, which even more exhilarated the general hilarity were served” at lunchtime, and finally to Bensheim, and at “eleven o'clock in the evening they arrived in Darmstadt in a family car back to". The after-party took place on the following day on the Herrgottsberg . The rapporteur did not fail to point out that, once again, music has helped "to socialize people from all walks of life". In all seriousness with which Mangold played the music, he was certainly not a child of sadness, he is said to have a lot of humor. Not only that he urgently needed it in his diverse service, he could also afford it with his skills, even as a means to an end.

"Abraham" and the "Hermannsschlacht" were among the most frequently performed stage works in Germany in the middle of the 19th century. His oratorio “Israel in the Desert” (1864) is, in terms of content, a continuation of Handel's Israel in Egypt , Hermanns Tod (1870) is a continuation of the Hermann Battle . The great year 1870 is reflected in Hermann's death and in Barbarossa's awakening (1872), with a splendid battle painting and Barbabianca's triumphal procession.

In the meantime, in addition to the music association, he had temporarily headed the singers' wreath, the women's choir "Cäcilia" and the association for church music, which suggested the composition of cantatas, motets and other sacred music and later returned them to the oratorio, as well as leading a men's quartet in the sixties and that of the Mozart Association from 1870 to 1875, which gave rise to many new male choirs. From 1846 to 1872 Mangold was a singing teacher at the trade school and the resulting polytechnic, which then developed into a college and university, and from 1854 to 1889 at the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium Darmstadt. After the success of the Hermannsschlacht , he was appointed Grand Ducal Court Music Director in 1848, and in 1858 he received the Golden Medal of Merit for Art and Science. He was an honorary member of several music associations, was often active as a judge and expert, and from 1856 to 1868 he directed two of the Middle Rhine music festivals that he co-founded. The friendship with Otto Roquette and Friedrich Bodenstedt was sealed by the Rheinmorgen borrowed from Waldmeister's bridal trip and the award-winning male choir cantata “Mirza-Schaffy”. In 1869, Mangold retired.

His last great choral work , Sawitri , which expresses his never-ending passion for creativity, was performed at the 50th anniversary of the conductor, which he celebrated in full vigor shortly before his death, the last of so many tributes that he received in his rich life. Mangold died on August 4, 1889 during a summer stay in Oberstdorf im Allgäu. A large mourners came together in October when Mangold's Frithjof sounded under Willem de Haan's direction . His grave in the old cemetery in Darmstadt still exists today and is lovingly cared for by the descendants who are still alive.

The list of works by Ludwig Voltz listed by the Musikverein shows that Mangold, although mainly cultivating the classics from Bach to Mendelssohn in the 297 concerts he directed, also gave the older and newest composers their deserved place. At his death, the music association recognized "his never-resting, art-loving, extremely conscientious management", to whom he owed "a continuous series of stages of growth in success and ideal striving". In 1913, on his centenary birthday, Frithjof was performed under the direction of his successor, the court conductor Willem de Haan .

Reception in the third millennium

Lately there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Mangold's work, thanks not least to the Darmstadt Concert Choir and its founder and director Wolfgang Seeliger . For example, Mangold's great romantic opera “Tanhäuser” was edited and performed by the concert choir and student assistants especially for the Darmstadt Residence Festival 2006, most recently in November 2014. Further performances are planned. Mangolds Tanhäuser was staged again in 2014 in the Eduard-von-Winterstein-Theater in Annaberg-Buchholz ( Ore Mountains ).

Mangold's oratorio Abraham is available on CD under the direction of Wolfgang Seeliger.

Works (selection)

Operas

• Fiesco , Opera (1840; not listed)
• The Koehler Girl or The Tournier zu Linz (H. Wilke), romantic opera, 3 acts (1843 Darmstadt)
• Tanhäuser (Eduard Duller), Opera, 4 acts (1843–1845; 1846 Darmstadt)
• Sleeping Beauty (Duller), ballet with melodrama and singing (1848 Darmstadt)
• The fisherwoman (Goethe), Singspiel, 1 act (1848)
• Rübezahl (Duller), Opera (1848)
• Gudrun (CA Mangold), great opera, 4 acts, op.36 (1850; 1851 Darmstadt)
• The Cantor von Fichtenhagen , comic opera, 2 acts

Oratorios

• Abraham , Oratory (1859)
• Wittekind , oratorio
• Israel in the desert , oratory
• Elysium , symphony cantata

literature

• Hermann Mendel : Musical Conversations Lexicon . Berlin 1877, Volume VII, p. 36 ff. ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Wilhelm Mangold (1848–1919, son): “Reprint from the Hessian Biographies. Historical Commission 1920 "
• Oswald Bill: Mangoldweg - who was Mangold? Darmstadt, undated.

Web links

• Works by and about Carl Amand Mangold in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Carl Amand Mangold  in the German Digital Library
• List of stage works by Carl Amand Mangold based on the MGG at Operone
• Carl Amand Mangold in the Bavarian Musicians' Lexicon Online (BMLO)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mangold, from Groß-Umstadt in the Odenwald . In: German Gender Book , Volume 69. CA Starke-Verlag, Görlitz 1930.
2. ↑ Tanhäuser in Annaberg