Eduard Kremser

Eduard Kremser, lithograph by Joseph Anton Bauer , 1880

Eduard Kremser (born April 10, 1838 in Vienna ; † November 26, 1914 there ) was an Austrian composer , arranger and conductor . He acquired great importance as a collector of traditional Viennese songs .

Life

Born in Vienna, Eduard Kremser worked from 1869 to 1899 as choir master of the Vienna men's choir , which later appointed him honorary chorister . The Dresden men's choir also made him an honorary member. Kremser gained fame through his effective arrangement of six old Dutch folk songs , including the old Dutch prayer of thanks We come to the prayer of Adriaen Valéry . He also created several larger male choir works with orchestral accompaniment ( Old Christmas Carol , Balkan Pictures , Prinz Eugen , Das Leben ein Tanz ), chants for mixed choir, operettas , songs and piano pieces.

The City of Vienna commissioned him to compile and publish an anthology on Viennese music in order to preserve this traditional cultural asset. Together with Ludwig Gruber, Kremser subsequently brought together a wealth of compositions from different times, in addition to vocal music, also instrumental music . Only handwritten items were received. The Viennese citizens had also been asked to send in material. Between 1911 and 1925, three volumes of Viennese songs and dances , or Kremser albums for short , were created. Today they are among the most important collections of Viennese songs . At the end of the 1970s, the opera and concert singer Eberhard Kummer rediscovered and edited numerous works from this collection and presented them in concerts and recordings. Since then, the songs in these albums have been picked up and edited by several other artists.

In addition, Kremser was socially and politically committed. He was vice-president and first honorary member of the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (AKM), from 1910 honorary member of the traditional Society of Friends of Music in Vienna and was elected President of the newly founded Austrian Composers' Association on June 14, 1913 ; Vice-president was court music director Carl Michael Ziehrer . Kremser held these offices until his death on November 26, 1914. His grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery has been declared a grave of honor by the City of Vienna .

literature

• Antonicek:  Kremser Eduard. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1969, p. 256 f. (Direct links on p. 256 , p. 257 ).
• Heinrich von Paumgartten: Eduard Kremser. An obituary . Herz, Vienna 1915, 12 pp.

Web links

• Works by and about Eduard Kremser in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Eduard Kremser  in the German Digital Library
• Sheet music and audio files by Eduard Kremser in the International Music Score Library Project
• Entry on Eduard Kremser in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Eduard Kremser, entry in Meyer's Großes Konversations-Lexikon . Volume 11. Leipzig 1907, p. 635
2. ↑ Alt-Wiener Volkslieder Vienna: Preiser and Cologne: EMI-Electrola ASD, 1978 (part I) and 1981 (part II) (record); New edition (CD): Vienna: Preiser and Naxos Germany, 1997
3. ↑ Certainly Philharmoniaschrammeln at the end of the 1980s: http://www.philharmoniaschrammeln.at/tontraeger/wrliededition.htm , presumably. also Neuwirth-Schrammeln, Hodina etc., no recordings known
4. ↑ Hartmut Krones: 80 Years of the Austrian Composers' Association 1913–1993 . From the 1993 Festschrift (pdf; 205 kB)
5. ↑ picture of the tomb