Charles Martin Loeffler

John Singer Sargent : Charles Martin Loeffler (1917)

Charles Martin Loeffler , after the pseudonym of his father also Charles Martin Tornov Loeffler (born January 30, 1861 as Karl Martin Loeffler in Schöneberg near Berlin; † May 19, 1935 in Medfield ( Massachusetts )) was a German -born American composer , violinist and Violist .

Life

As his biographer Ellen Knight has shown, Loeffler was born the son of Berlin parents in Schöneberg near Berlin. During his childhood, the family moved with his father, an engineer and (under the name Tornow) a writer to many places in Europe, including Paris , Alsace , the place Smila in the Russian governorate of Kiev as well as Hungary and Switzerland . The father was imprisoned in the Prussian state because of his republican sentiments and apparently also tortured when Loeffler was 12 years old. Shortly before his release, the father died in custody. Thus, the young person already developed an aversion to his German origins. Loeffler turned strongly to French culture and language and later claimed to be born in Mulhouse in Alsace, which was adopted in almost all music lexicons. The trade press even attested him a typically Alsatian temperament during his lifetime .

Loeffler, who started playing the violin at the age of nine in the Ukraine, decided at the age of 13 for a career as a musician. He studied violin in Berlin with Joseph Joachim and composition with Friedrich Kiel and Woldemar Bargiel , then with Lambert Joseph Massart (violin) and Ernest Guiraud (composition) in Paris . He first played in several Paris orchestras, but then emigrated to the USA in June 1881, where he became a member of Leopold Damrosch's orchestra in New York City and finally of the Boston Symphony Orchestra , where he was second concertmaster from 1882 to 1903. He first appeared as a violin composer by premiering a suite Les Vieilles du Ukraine with his orchestra in 1891 . His works were later regularly performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and other American orchestras. In 1887 Loeffler became a US citizen. In 1903 he retired from the orchestra and worked as a freelance composer, from 1910 he retired to his country estate in Medfield, Massachusetts. In 1908 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1921 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He was friends with the painter John Singer Sargent , the composers Eugène Ysaÿe and George Gershwin as well as Gabriel Fauré and Ferruccio Busoni , who dedicated works to him. The American composer Francis Judd Cooke is one of his students . Loeffler bequeathed his estate to the Paris Conservatory and the Académie Française .

plant

Loeffler's manuscript page for the song To Helen op.15 no.3

Loeffler was a meticulous, self-critical and slow-working composer. Some of his works (including a cello concerto) have been lost. His musical style was mainly influenced by contemporary French fin de siècle music ( Franck , Chausson , Debussy ), but also by echoes of Ukrainian folklore. A certain lyrical elegance with impressionistic structures is combined with the often gloomy, melancholy content: Many of the texts he has set to music come from symbolism , among the authors who have set to music are Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire , Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman .

Loeffler often used unusual instrumental ensembles in his chamber music, so he was one of the first modern followers of the viola d'amore , which he discovered for himself in 1894 and for which he composed and arranged several works. Later he became enthusiastic about the emerging jazz music and wrote some works for jazz bands.

In addition to a few symphonic poems , Loeffler left behind a wide range of chamber music works with a wide variety of ensembles and around 40 song compositions.

Selection of works (chronological)

• String Quartet in A minor (1889)
• Les Vieilles de l'Ukraine , Suite for Violin and Orchestra (1891)
• Four songs op.5 (1893, published 1904)
• Nine songs with viola and piano, (1893–94, published 1903)
• String quintet for three violins, viola and violoncello (ca.1894)
• Octet for two clarinets, two violins, viola, cello, double bass and harp (ca.1896)
• La Mort de Tintagiles op. 6, Symphonic poem after Maeterlinck for two viole d'amore and orchestra (1896–7; version from 1901 for one viola d'amore and orchestra)
• Three Rhapsodies for voice, clarinet, viola and piano (1898), these arranged as
  • Deux Rhapsodies for oboe, viola and piano (1901)
  • La Villanelle du Diable op.9 for orchestra (1901)
• Psalm 137 : By the Waters of Babylon op.3 for voice, two flutes, harp, organ and violoncello (1901)
• Ballade carnavalesque for flute, oboe, saxophone, bassoon and piano (1902)
• Poeme paien (d'après Virgile) for 13 instruments (1901-02) this orchestrated as
  • A Pagan Poem (after Virgil) for orchestra with obbligato piano, cor anglais and three trumpets (1907)
• Four Poems op.15 for voice, viola and piano (1905)
• The Passion of Hilarion , opera in one act (after William Sharp) (1912-13)
• Music for Four Stringed Instruments for string quartet (1917, 1918-20)
• Five Irish Fantasies for voice and orchestra (1906–20) based on texts by Yeats, among others
• Memories of my Childhood (Life in a Russian Village) for orchestra (1923)
• Clowns , intermezzo for jazz band (1928)
• Partita for violin and piano (1930)
• The Lone Prairee , paraphrase on two cowboy songs for saxophone, viola d'amore and piano (1930)

literature

• Ellen Knight, Charles Martin Loeffler: A Life Apart in American Music , University of Illinois Press 1993, ISBN 0-252-01908-3
• Marianne Betz: Loeffler, Charles Martin . In: Ludwig Finscher (Ed.): MGG . tape 11 . Bärenreiter Verlag, 2004, Sp. 375-378 .

Web links

Commons : Charles Martin Loeffler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography at www.voiceoflyrics.com (engl.)
• List of works in the Classical Composers Database
• Lyrics of Loeffler's songs on The Lied and Art Song Texts Page
• Published works by Schirmer
• Sheet music and audio files by Charles Martin Loeffler in the International Music Score Library Project

Individual evidence

1. ^ Members: Charles Martin Loeffler. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 10, 2019 .