Eduard Grell

Eduard Grell, 1865

Memorial plaque on Grell's birthplace

August Eduard Grell (born November 6, 1800 in Berlin , † August 10, 1886 in Steglitz ) was a German composer , organist and director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin .

Life

Not far from St. Nikolai in Berlin's center , at Poststrasse 12, August Eduard Grell was born as the son of the royal secretary of the forestry department August Wilhelm Grell (1769–1839), who was a skilled organ player (worked as an organist at the Parochialkirche from 1808 to 1839) ) and was his first music teacher. A plaque with a relief portrait by Fritz Schaper , which was inaugurated on the occasion of his 100th birthday in November 1900 and donated by the Berlin magistrate , still reminds of Grell's birthplace . The organist Karl Kaufmann and Karl Nikolaus Türrschmiedt followed as further music teachers . Musically, he was also heavily influenced by his uncle Otto Grell , who earned a great reputation as a tenor soloist as a member of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin.

After the death of his organ teacher Johann Georg Gottlieb Lehmann , the music director at St. Nikolai, Grell succeeded him at the age of sixteen. At the same time he received violin lessons and attended the grammar school at the Gray Monastery . The theologian Georg Carl Benjamin Ritschl and Johann Joachim Bellermann , director of the grammar school and responsible for the reintroduction of singing lessons in the schools of Prussia, are considered teachers and supporters in this phase of life .

Grell studied composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter and Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen . After leaving school in 1817, he went to the Sing-Akademie. He continued his theoretical training in Erfurt with Michael Gotthardt Fischer . From 1841 to 1886 he was a member of the musical section of the Prussian Academy of the Arts , to whose Senate he was appointed in 1852. In March 1853, he succeeded Rungenhagen, who died in December 1851, as the new director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin and the Zelterschen Liedertafel . He soon resigned from the position of court and cathedral organist at the Berlin Cathedral , which he had taken over from Ludwig Hellwig in 1839 .

In the second half of the 19th century he was regarded as one of the outstanding personalities of Berlin's musical life, as an exceptionally productive, versatile composer and as an advocate of the ideal of "naked" vocal music , a cappella singing . Grell composed primarily vocal music, including singing games , cantatas , oratorios and operas . In addition, three symphonies , three string quartets and numerous fugues were created from his pen .

His church music is largely based on the a cappella style of the Palestrina period . In the Protestant area, Grell is one of the founders of a Palestrina renaissance alongside Siegfried Dehn and Heinrich Bellermann . One of Grell's great merits was the restoration of Handel's oratorios in their original form, removing additions and alienating omissions in song and orchestration owed to the “zeitgeist”.

In his role at the Sing-Akademie, however, he stuck to the tried and tested. He merely continued the revival of Bach's oratorios. So, on December 17, 1857, at his endeavor, the Christmas Oratorio was performed for the first time since Bach's death.

On June 13, 1876, he resigned from the directorate of the Sing Academy.

tomb

Eduard Grell died in Steglitz in 1886 at the age of 85 . After a funeral service at the Sing-Akademie, he was buried on August 13, 1886 in Berlin's Friedrichswerder cemetery on Bergmannstrasse . His tombstone is adorned with a marble portrait tondo created by Fritz Schaper. The grave was dedicated as a Berlin honorary grave from 1956 to 2014 .

Works (selection)

• Andante cantabile , D major, solo violoncello and string quartet (string orchestra or piano ), His Excellency the Secret Counsel Mr. Sulzer , Verlag R. Sulzer Nachhaben, Berlin
• Laurel and Rose , Duet for two voices and piano, op.6
• Duettino concertante , F major, for two cellos and string orchestra (or piano), Verlag R. Sulzer Nachhaben, Berlin
• Dem in der Finsternis , for choir and orchestra, Wildt's Musikverlag, Dortmund
• Larghetto for 4 violoncellos , F major, R. Sulzer Successor Verlag, Berlin, 1879
• Terzetto , D major, for three cellos and string orchestra (or piano), Verlag R. Sulzer Successor, Berlin
• Gracious and merciful for male choir, eight-part
• The Israelites in the desert , oratory
• 16-part mass , a cappella, 1861
• The Lord is king and gloriously adorned , song
• The Lord's grace endures forever and ever , song
• Exalted, O Lord, above all , song
• God give peace in this land , song
• Praise God, you peoples of the earth , song
• And no matter how much winter looms (hope) , song
• What attracts me with a sweet tone? (Spring Festival), song
• Suse, dear Suse, what's rustling in the straw? , Song
• Lord, your kindness goes so far , song
• Whitsun song for 3 solo and 4 choir voices with accompaniment of the pianoforte , Op. 11, T. Trautwein, Berlin
• Three short and easy four-part motets , male choir with accompaniment of the organ or pianoforte, Op. 13, T. Trautwein, Berlin
  • Lord, bow your ears
  • Lord, your kindness goes so far
  • Praise the Lord my soul , Psalm 103
• Blessed are the dead for 4 solo and 4 choral parts, Op. 18, T. Trautwein, Berlin
• Der Herr ist mein Hirte for 5 solo and 4 choral parts with accompaniment of the pianoforte, Op. 19, T. Trautwein, Berlin
• Two eight-part motets , Op. 22, T. Trautwein, Berlin
• Three Motets for Mixed Choir, Op. 34, H. Oppenheimer, Hameln
  • Lord I love the place of your home ( Pentecost and other times)
  • Lord, remember us according to your word ( Reformation festival , mission festival, etc.)
  • Praise the Lord, my soul , ( Thanksgiving and other celebrations of thanksgiving)
• Te deum laudamus for solo and choral parts with accompaniment of 2 violins, alto, basso, 2 oboes, 2 fagots, Op. 38, T. Trautwein, Berlin, around 1850
• Urfinsternis , for male choir, solo quartet (small choir) and large choir, Schott, London
• Missa Solemnis , for 16-part a cappella choir, Bote & Bock, Berlin

Honors (selection)

• Professor title
• Honorary doctorate in theology
• 1846: Red Eagle Order IV class
• 1864: Pour le Mérite for Science and the Arts
• A street is named after him in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg . See Grellstrasse

literature

• Franziska Arndt, Klaus Bechstein, Sigrid Fundheller, Daniel Krebs, Regina Steindl, Wolf Mankiewicz in: 300 years of the Parochial Church, contributions to history. Ev. Marien parish, Berlin 2003.
• Heinrich Bellermann : August Eduard Grell (biography). Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, Berlin 1899.
• Robert Eitner:  Grell, Eduard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 49, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 540-542.
• Eduard Grell: Essays and reports on music. Edited by Heinrich Bellermann after his death. Julius Springer, Berlin 1887.
• Thomas-M. Langner:  Grell, August Eduard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 43 ( digitized version ).
• Friedemann Milz: A cappella theory and musical humanism with August Eduard Grell. (= Cologne Contributions to Music Research , Volume 84) Gustav Bosse, Regensburg 1976.
• Nikita Braguinski: The systems of pure moods by August Eduard Grell and their intellectual-historical context . In: Yearbook of the State Institute for Music Research Prussian Cultural Heritage 2011, Mainz 2011, pp. 75-104.
• Peter Sühring : From the bondage of the instruments - Eduard Grell and Gustav Jacobsthal. In: Yearbook of the State Institute for Music Research Prussian Cultural Heritage 2011. Mainz 2011, pp. 105–124.
• Ullrich Scheideler: Historicism and functionality - August Eduard Grell's compositional work between old music and new institutions. In: Yearbook of the State Institute for Music Research Prussian Cultural Heritage 2011. Mainz 2011, pp. 125–153.
• Peter Sühring : "The in musicis over-civilized sphere of the world has made itself deaf". Eduard Grell's fight for unaccompanied singing. In: poetry, singing, composing. The Zeltersche Liedertafel as a cultural-historical phenomenon (1809-1945). Wehrhahn Verlag, Hanover 2017, pp. 105–120.

Web links

Commons : Eduard Grell  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Eduard Grell in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Eduard Grell  in the German Digital Library
• Curriculum vitae of August Eduard Grell at Klassika - The German-language classical pages
• Sheet music and audio files by Eduard Grell in the International Music Score Library Project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , Volume 8. Leipzig 1907, pp. 275-276.
2. ^ Berliner Tageblatt , August 14, 1886, morning edition.
3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin tombs . Haude & Spener, Berlin 2006. p. 98.