Franz Lachner

The musicians Vinzenz, Franz and Ignaz Lachner, wood engraving after a photograph, from: Gartenlaube 1891

Franz Lachner, lithograph by Andreas Staub , around 1835

Franz Paul Lachner (born April 2, 1803 in Rain , † January 20, 1890 in Munich ) was a German composer and conductor .

Life

Franz Lachner was born into a musical family. His father Anton was an organist , from whom he received his first lessons. His brothers Ignaz and Vinzenz and his stepbrother Theodor were also composers.

He attended grammar school in Neuburg an der Donau , but also devoted himself to studying composition under Eisenhofer. After the death of his father in 1822 Lachner went to Munich, continued his studies and gave music lessons in the city. During this time he became a member of the Akademisches Gesangverein München , an artistic student association. In 1823 he became organist at the Lutheran City Church in Vienna , where he studied with Simon Sechter and Maximilian Stadler . He was accepted into the circle of artists around Franz Schubert and Moritz von Schwind and became a close friend of Schwind. He was also in contact with Beethoven .

Franz Lachner (left) with Franz Schubert and Eduard von Bauernfeld at the Heurigen ( Moritz von Schwind , 1862)

In 1826 Lachner became Vice Kapellmeister and in 1828 first Kapellmeister at the Kärntnertortheater , from 1834 to 1836 he was court conductor in Mannheim . In 1836 he returned to Munich, where he was the conductor of the Court Opera, the concerts of the Musical Academy and the Royal Vocal Band. This appointment as court conductor took place on the occasion of his Sinfonia passionata , which won the grand prize in Vienna in 1835. In 1852 he became general music director . When King Ludwig II called Richard Wagner to Munich, Lachner retired in 1868.

Lachner's Beethoven interpretations were considered exemplary; he also successfully performed Wagner's operas, although he was hostile to his music. Joseph Rheinberger and Franz Wüllner were among his students .

tomb

Lachner's grave is located in the Old Southern Cemetery in Munich (Grave field 10, row 6, place 55) - location .

family

Franz Lachner married the merchant's daughter Julie Royko in Vienna in 1833 (born November 10, 1810 in Vienna, † April 19, 1864 in Munich). The marriage resulted in four children, with Lachner surviving his three sons: Fritz (* May 24, 1834 - December 28, 1842), Rudolph (* / † 1836) and Eugen (* November 21, 1838 - December 12 1882, director of the Karthaus-Prüll district insane asylum near Regensburg). The daughter Maria (born March 23, 1844 in Munich; † August 20, 1915 in Rimsting ) married the spirits manufacturer Heinrich Riemerschmid (1836–1882) in 1870 .

Honors

Franz Lachner was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 1853 . In 1883 he became an honorary citizen of the city of Munich.

His hometown Rain honored him with a street name, the Gebrüder Lachner Museum, which is housed in the house where he was born, and the name of the Gebrüder Lachner secondary school.

Style and reception

Franz Lachner

Lachner was a very prolific composer. His catalog raisonné, in which almost all important musical genres are represented, shows almost 200 opus numbers . Stylistically he was influenced by Ludwig van Beethoven and Louis Spohr , also by Giacomo Meyerbeer , but above all by Franz Schubert.

Lachner's music is characterized by a skillful mastery of form and, above all, of counterpoint . The composer's strength was therefore particularly evident in the execution of his sonata movements. While the instrumental works tend more towards counterpoint, Lachner's melodic talent is particularly evident in his songs, in which the special bond with the music of his friend Schubert can be heard. Lachner is said to have said confidently about him once: "It's a shame that Schubert didn't learn as much as I, otherwise he would have become a master with his extraordinary talent."

With the happy idea of reviving the form of the orchestral suite, which had been forgotten since Haydn , he still had brilliant composer successes even at an advanced age. His seven works of this genre surpass almost all of his earlier works in freshness of invention and ingenious work and made him known beyond Germany's borders.

After his death, interest in Lachner's music quickly waned. His very conservative, more artisanal style soon no longer seemed up to date. In addition, he was sidelined because of his rejection of Richard Wagner's music. The beginning of a more detailed study of Lachner can only be made out towards the end of the 20th century. Although not every work is on the same level in his extensive catalog raisonné, the best compositions show him as a stylish vocal and instrumental composer. Some of his works even point to the early work of Anton Bruckner , with whom he shared the teacher (sixth).

Works

Grave of Franz Lachner in the old southern cemetery in Munich

The bust on the grave of Franz Lachner by the sculptor Michael Wagmüller

• Symphonies
  • Symphony No. 1 in E flat major op.3 2 (1828)
  • Symphony No. 2 in F major (1833)
  • Symphony No. 3 in D minor, Op. 41 (1834)
  • Symphony No. 4 in E major (1834)
  • Symphony No. 5 in C minor Prize Symphony (also Sinfonia passionata ) op.52 (1835)
  • Symphony No. 6 in D major, Op. 56 (1837)
  • Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 58 (1839)
  • Symphony No. 8 in G minor, Op. 100 (1851)
• Orchestral suites
  • Suite No. 1 in D minor, Op. 113 (1861)
  • Suite No. 2 in E minor, Op. 115 (1862)
  • Suite No. 3 in F minor, Op. 122 (1864)
  • Suite No. 4 in E flat major op.129 (1865)
  • Suite No. 5 in C minor, Op. 135 (1868)
  • Suite No. 6 in C major op.150 (1871)
  • Suite No. 7 in D minor, Op. 190 (1881)
  • Ball Suite in D major op.170 (1874)
• Concerts
  • Harp Concerto in C minor (1828)
  • Harp Concerto in D minor (1833)
  • Flute Concerto in D minor (1832)
• Chamber music
  • Piano Trio No. 1 in E major (1828)
  • Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor (1829)
  • Trio for piano, clarinet and horn in B flat major (1830)
  • String Quartet No. 1 in B minor op.75 (1843)
  • String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 76 (1843)
  • String Quartet No. 3 in E flat major op.77 (1843)
  • String Quartet No. 4 in D minor op.120 (1849)
  • String Quartet No. 5 in G major op.169 (1849)
  • String Quartet No. 6 in E minor, Op. 173 (1850)
  • Serenade in G major for 4 cellos (1829)
  • Elegy in F sharp minor for 5 cellos op.160 (1834)
  • String Quintet in C minor, Op. 121 (1834)
  • Piano Quintet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 139 (1868)
  • Piano Quintet No. 2 in C minor, Op. 145 (1869)
  • Wind quintet No. 1 in F major (1823)
  • Wind quintet No. 2 in E flat major (1829)
  • Septet in E flat major (1824)
  • Octet in B flat major op.156 (1850)
  • Nonet in F major (1875)
  • Andante A flat major for brass instruments (1833)
  • 3 songs without words for harp (1856)
• Piano works
  • Sonata in A minor (1824)
  • Sonata in F sharp minor op.2 (1825)
  • Sonata in F major op.25 (1827)
  • Suite in C minor op.142 (1868)
  • 6 songs without words op.109 (1856)
  • Sonata for piano 4-hd. C minor op.20 (1827)
  • Sonata for piano 4-hd. D minor op.39 (1832)
  • Fantasy in A flat major for piano 4-hd.
  • Variations in E minor for piano 4-hd. op. 138 (1868)
  • Momento capriccioso in A minor for piano 4-hd. op. 3 (1824)
  • 3 Scherzi for piano 4-hd. op. 26 (1829)
  • Nocturne op. 22 (1829)
• Organ works
  • Introduction and fugue in D minor for organ or piano 4-hd. op. 62
  • Sonata in F minor, Op. 175
  • Sonata in C minor op.176
  • Sonata in A minor op.177
• Vocal works
  • The four generations . Cantata op.31 (1829)
  • Moses . Oratorio op.45 (1833)
  • Des Kriegers Gebet op.89 for four-part male choir and complete military music, published by Schott in Mainz (1847)
  • 8 fairs
  • Requiem op.146
• Songs
  • Singer ride op.33
  • Women's love and life op.59
  • about 200 other songs
• Operas
  • The Guarantee (1828)
  • Alidia (1839)
  • Catarina Cornaro (1841)
  • Benvenuto Cellini (1849)
• Incidental music
  • Lanassa (1830)
  • King Oedipus (1852)

literature

• Obituary for Franz Lachner. In:  Neue Freie Presse , January 21, 1890, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).
• M. Charles [ie Max Chop ]: Franz Lachner. In: M. Charles [ie Max Chop]: Contemporary sound poets. Studies and sketches. New episode. Roßberg, Leipzig 1890, pp. 56-99. Digitized .
• E. Fritsche: Three German musicians , in: Die Gartenlaube. Illustrated family sheet. Year 1891, pp. 491–492. With portraits of Vincenz, Franz and Ignaz Lachner as wood engraving, after a photograph, p. 485.
• Otto Kronseder: Franz Lachner . Reprint of the old Bavarian monthly, Leipzig 1903.
• Eugen Schmitz : For Franz Lachner's centenary. Munich newspaper of April 2, 1903.
• Ludwig Karl Mayer: Franz Lachner as an instrumental composer , dissertation University of Munich 1922.
• Carl Krebs:  Lachner, Franz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 525-530.
• Anton Würz :  Lachner, Franz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 375 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Anton Würz: Franz Lachner as a dramatic composer. Dissertation Munich 1927.
• Ulrich Konrad , The Vienna Composition Competition 1835 and Franz Lachner's Sinfonia passionata. A contribution to the history of the Beethoven symphony . In: Augsburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft 3 (1986), pp. 209-239
• Stephan Hörner , Hartmut Schick (ed.): Franz Lachner and his brothers. Hofkapellmeister between Schubert and Wagner (= Munich publications on music history. Vol. 63). Report on the musicological symposium on the occasion of the 200th birthday of Franz Lachner, organized by the Society for Bavarian Music History and the Institute for Musicology of the University of Munich, Munich, 24. – 26. October 2003. Schneider, Tutzing 2006, ISBN 3-7952-1215-4 .
• Clarissa Höschel: Franz Lachner in his time. In: Literature in Bavaria. Issue 74, December 2003, ISSN  0178-6857 , pp. 50-63.
• Harald Johannes Mann: The Lachner family of musicians and the city of Rain. Deibl, Rain 1989 (with an extensive biography of Franz Lachner).
• Jürgen Wulf: The sacred vocal music of Franz Lachner. Biographical and stylistic studies with a thematic index (= studies and materials on musicology. Vol. 18). Olms, Hildesheim u. a. 1999, ISBN 3-487-10863-1 (also: Münster, Univ., Diss., 1995).
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Lachner, Franz . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 13th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1865, pp. 460–463 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Franz Lachner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Sheet music and audio files by Franz Lachner in the International Music Score Library Project
• Works by and about Franz Lachner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Franz Lachner  in the German Digital Library
• The musician brothers Lachner
• Works by Franz Lachner at the Munich Digitization Center ( Bavarian State Library )
• Catalog of works on Klassika

Digital copies

1. ↑ The warrior's prayer as a digitized version of the Munich digitization center of the Bavarian State Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Harald Johannes Mann: The Lachner family of musicians and the city of Rain , p. 56 and 66
2. ↑ Max Friedlaender : Franz Schubert: sketch of his life and work . Leipzig 1928, p. 17