Carl Greith

Karl Greith (the name of his uncle is written as follows: Carl Johann Greith )

Carl Greith , also Karl Greith, baptized Emil Franz Carl Greith, (born February 21, 1828 in Aarau , Switzerland , † November 17, 1887 in Munich ) was a Swiss composer and church musician .

Life

Emil Franz Carl Greith was born on February 21, 1828 as the eldest son of the six children of the Swiss composer and music teacher Franz Josef Greith (1799–1869). Carl is described as a musically gifted child who emulated his father and often stood in for him as a musician in church. After a classical education at the grammar school, which he finished with honors, he became a good Latin . A skill that was of inestimable value to him later as a church composer.

Following his outstanding inclination and talent, his father Greith and his eldest sister Rosa (1826–1913), who was working as a piano teacher in St. Gallen at the time, enabled him to study music in Munich. In autumn 1845 he toured the cathedral city with his father. He had selected the best teachers in their field for him in what was then the center of Catholic church music. Kaspar Ett (1788–1847), the revival of classical church music (for harmony and counterpoint theory) and the respected organ master Johann Georg Herzog (1822–1909). It was here that Carl Greith received fundamental musical training from 1845 to 1847 in the following subjects: harmony and composition, violin, flute, piano and organ. His first compositions followed in his second year of study: a festive overture for the bishop's celebration in St. Gallen and a commissioned work for the canton school of 32 chants for the Catholic worship service (1846/47) . After training in Munich, he completed his composition studies in Augsburg under the wing of Karl Ludwig Drobisch (1803-1854).

In the autumn of 1847 Greith returned to St. Gallen where, in 1848, as director of the Face Society and singing teacher, he took over the theoretical and practical maintenance of music and related lectures at the higher education institutions. On the occasion of the musical closing ceremony of the St. Gallen Cantonal School , his oratorio "The Holy Gallus" was premiered on August 25, 1848. It was repeated in the spring of 1849 in Winterthur and Zurich. Father Greith u. a. by the Swiss composer Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee (1786–1868) who wrote to him: “ The twenty-year-old's composition is natural, clear, unsolicited, the instrumentation excellent and completely pure. The composer has mind and soul, head and heart, he will shine as a beautiful shining star in the firmament of the composition. “After several chorale masses and string quartets, the melodramas Frauenherz and Die Waise von Geneva followed in Basel and St. Gallen. At that time he also met Richard Wagner (1813–1883), and he initially felt attracted and later alienated.

In 1854 Carl Greith moved to Frankfurt am Main where he worked as a highly valued music teacher and a. composed a symphony. In 1856 he was appointed music director in Feldkirch . In 1857 he returned to Switzerland and took a job as a professor and choir conductor in Schwyz . After his father's retirement in 1861, he succeeded him as choir director and organist at the cathedral in St. Gallen . His reform efforts were only reluctantly accepted in the conservative, Catholic environment. For ten years he struggled with innumerable difficulties, but thanks to his indomitable will he succeeded.

Happily married, he moved to Munich with his musically educated, sensitive wife Klara in 1872, where, after having performed several successful compositions, he became the cathedral music director at the Frauenkirche from 1877 onwards . He poured untiring energy into the local orchestra, not least to be able to perform his own compositions. A close friendship connected him with the reformer of Catholic church music Franz Xaver Witt (1834–1888). Greith's work, however , was hardly noticed by the cathedral chapter, which was dominated by Cecilia , and he withdrew more and more from the public. Out of annoyance, he even refrained from quoting his name in many performances of his works. On November 17, 1887, he suffered a stroke and died. He was buried in the old southern cemetery at Sendlinger Tor in Munich, where his grave still exists today. In an obituary, the people of Munich honored him with the equality of his contemporaries Joseph Rheinberger (1839–1901) and Franz Lachner (1803–1890), who also lived in Munich and are now much better known .

Biographical sources

• Regula Puskás: Greith, Karl. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland ., 2006
• Hans Peter Schanzlin:  Greith, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 42 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hyacinth Holland :  Greith, Karl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 49, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 537-539.
• Karl Jakob Eisenring: Carl Greith, the greatest Swiss church musician. A picture of the life and character of the former cathedral music director of St. Gallen and Munich, along with five samples of Karl Greith's music-literary work . Publishing house of the Paradies educational institution, Ingenbohl 1900
• Alfred Disch: Franz Josef Greith von Rapperswil (1799–1869) , ed. from the local community of Rapperswil, 1982
• Emanuel Schwarz: The composer Carl Greith , supplement oratorio “Der heilige Gallus”, ed. from the Collegium Musicum St. Gallen, 1998
• Supplement oratorio “Judith”, ed. from the Collegium Musicum St. Gallen, 2001
• Supplement oratorio “The Holy Gallus”, ed. by Musiques Suisse ( MGB ), 2003

Web links

Wikisource: Carl Greith  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

1. ↑ State Archives St. Gallen
2. ^ Regula Puskás: Greith, Karl. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
3. ^ Karl Jakob Eisenring: Carl Greith, the greatest Swiss church musician . Publishing house of the Paradies educational institution, Ingenbohl 1900.