Friedrich Ludwig Dulon

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Friedrich Ludwig Dulon

Friedrich Ludwig Dulon (born August 14, 1769 in Oranienburg ; † July 7, 1826 in Würzburg ; spelling of the surname also Dülon ) was a German flautist and composer . Blinded since early childhood, he was one of the most famous flute virtuosos of the late 18th century.

life and work

Dulon, the son of a music-loving tax officer, lost his vision almost completely in the first few weeks of his life as a result of incorrect treatment by an ophthalmologist (he was still able to differentiate between light and dark). His father, who played the flute himself, initially taught his son himself, whose musical talent was noticeable when he played on the ridge of Quantz's flute concertos , which he heard from his father. Later he also received flute lessons from the also blind flautist Joseph Winter and from the Stendal organist Angerstein lessons in piano and figured bass . At the age of 9 he dictated his first compositions and appeared as a soloist in Stendal a year later. At the age of 13, Dulon, accompanied by his father, gave concerts in various German cities with great success. His memory enabled him to learn performed works within a few hours. At the age of 40 he had more than 300 concerts in his repertoire.

Dulon was known to numerous musicians of his time. Johann Philipp Kirnberger and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach stood up for Dulon and encouraged him to compose. On the other hand, Dulon's playing inspired Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach himself to compose his Hamburg Sonata in G major Wq 133. Dulon was also friends with Karl Hermann Heinrich Benda (concertmaster at the Royal Opera Potsdam, son of Franz Benda ) and Johann Georg Tromlitz . In the summer of 1789 Friedrich Hölderlin took flute lessons with Dulon in Tübingen . Schubart dedicated a 9-stanza poem to Dulon “The blind flute player Dülon on his journey”; its 1st stanza reads:

You good Dulon don't complain
That night fluffed your face;
Don't you have deep heart feeling
Not magical flute playing?

After concert tours that took him to Switzerland , Holland and England , Dulon was hired in 1792 as a “Russian-Imperial chamber musician” for an annual salary of 1000 rubles in St. Petersburg . On one of his early trips, the young Friedrich Ludwig must have given concerts in the company of his father in Rinteln / Weser, where he made the acquaintance of the city organist Matthäus Müller. He set several stanzas of Schubart's poem to music in the classical style for soprano, flute and piano. The foreword says: "In honor of the excellent flute player Dûlon and eternal memory set to music by M.Müller, organist at St. Nicolai zu Rinteln". A lost manuscript was only recently discovered and given a world premiere on May 29, 2016 in the Baroque church in Garbsen-Osterwald.

After the father's death, his sister became his companion. Even in the first years of the 19th century Dulon undertook smaller concert tours and otherwise lived in Stendal and Würzburg . The poet Christoph Martin Wieland wrote down the autobiography he dictated "Dulons, the blind flute player's life and opinions, edited by himself", which was published in two volumes by Gessner in Zurich in 1807/1808 .

Dulon left behind a number of his own works, in particular solo and duo compositions for flute.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart: Poems. Reclam, Leipzig (no year), pp. 391-392, at zeno.org
  2. ↑ Post Forum Music and Church

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dulon, Friedrich Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dülon, Friedrich Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German flautist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1769
PLACE OF BIRTH Oranienburg
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1826
Place of death Wurzburg