Fyodor Alexandrovich Rall

Fyodor Alexandrovich Rall (after a watercolor by Mikhail Terebenev)

Baron Fyodor Alexandrovich Rall ( Russian Фёдор Александрович Раль * 1802 in St. Petersburg , † July 4 ^jul. / 16th July  1848 ^greg. ) Was a Russian composer and conductor .

Life

Rall's parents were the banker Alexander Franz von Rall and Jelisaweta Nikolajewna Molwo (1768–1843), daughter of the wealthy sugar manufacturer Hermann Nikolaus Molwo. Rall was enthusiastic about music , especially since his parents' house was a center of St. Petersburg music. He took piano lessons from John Field and Charles Mayer . At the age of twelve he began to compose music for orchestra .

In 1821 Rall joined the Olwiopol Hussar regiment as a Junker and in 1822 became a cornet . However, because of the bankruptcy of his father , he had to give up military service, so that he took his leave as Porutschik . In 1826 he was assistant to the court ceremonies for the parades at the funeral of Alexander I. From 1831 to 1839 he was in the service of the St. Petersburg police as a representative of the St. Petersburg Governor General Pyotr Essen . During this time, Rall devoted himself more to music and played all orchestral instruments, as Vladimir Stasov noted.

In 1839 Rall became Kapellmeister in the service of the management of the Imperial Theater . He supervised the music store and arranged the orchestral parts of the operas and ballets for the stage. In 1843 the management commissioned him to arrange the military music required for theater performances, including all the preparations. Since then he has led the Orchestra of the Navy - Garde regular military music with steadily rising quality on the St. Petersburg opera stage on. During the government of Nicholas I , Rall was allowed to wear a mustache as an official in uniform, despite a ban, in order not to endanger the approach when playing the wind instruments. This is how Mikhail Terebenjow depicted him in a watercolor .

In April 1842, Rall and Mikhail Glinka began to prepare his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila for the stage, with the military band playing an important role and Rall himself taking on the piano part in the orchestra. In 1845 the opera Ruslan and Lyudmila was taken over by the Moscow Bolshoi Theater . All scores with Ralls arrangements were probably lost due to the fire in the Bolshoi Theater in 1853.

Rall died of cholera in St. Petersburg.

Web links

Commons : von Rall family  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ралль, барон Федор Александрович . In: Большая биографическая энциклопедия . ( academic.ru [accessed on September 21, 2017]).
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} W. Stasov: Помощник Глинки . In: Русская старина . No. 11 , 1893.