Friedrich von Flotow

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Friedrich von Flotow. Lithograph by Émile Desmaisons, 1866

Friedrich Adolf Ferdinand von Flotow (born April 27, 1812 in Teutendorf , † January 24, 1883 in Darmstadt ) was a German opera composer .

Life

Friedrich von Flotow (No. 258 of the gender census ) is one of the best-known representatives of the Flotow family , which has been documented since 1241 and belongs to the Mecklenburg nobility. He was born as the second of four children and the eldest son of the landowner and Prussian captain Wilhelm von Flotow (1785–1847; No. 174) on Teutendorf (now a district of Sanitz ) and Wendfeld and his wife, Caroline Sophie Rahel, née. von Böckmann (1792–1862). Both parents were musically educated. The father played the flute, the mother the piano. Flotow received his first knowledge of music in private lessons from his mother.

His father had actually planned a diplomatic career for Flotow , but when his musical talent became apparent, his father, on the recommendation of the clarinet virtuoso Ivan Müller, made him pursue the career of a musician. From 1828 on he studied composition with Anton Reicha and piano with Johann Peter Pixis at the Conservatoire de Paris . There he befriended Charles Gounod and Jacques Offenbach , among others .

In 1830 Flotow returned to Germany for a short time . Here he composed his first dramatic works: Pierre et Cathérine , Rob Roy and La duchesse de Guise , which he then performed in Paris with great difficulty. The freshness of the melodies and the cheerful spirit expressed in these works were well received, and in 1838 the director of the Théâtre de la Renaissance entrusted him with the composition of the second act of the genre opera Le Naufrage de la Méduse , which was performed 54 times within a year has been.

These operas were followed in short intervals by Le forestier (1840), L'esclave de Camoëns (1843) and the ballet Lady Harriet (1844), composed in collaboration with Friedrich Burgmüller and Edouard Deldevez . In 1844 he was able to report his first major success with the opera Alessandro Stradella, which premiered in Hamburg . Together with his opera Martha or Der Markt von Richmond , which premiered in Vienna in 1847 , it forms the basis for Flotow's (until the mid-20th century) high level of awareness. The libretti for the two operas came from Friedrich Wilhelm Riese (pseudonym: Wilhelm Friedrich), who wrote on older works that were created with the help of Flotow. Martha's text is based on Lady Harriet .

Flotow's later operas, such as Die Großfürstin (1850, libretto by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer ), Rübezahl (1853, libretto by Gustav Gans zu Putlitz ) or Albin (1856, Salomon Hermann Mosenthal ), could not achieve lasting success and only appear as pale reproductions of earlier works.

In 1848 Flotow returned to Mecklenburg to take over his father's inheritance. On August 21, 1849 he married Elisabeth von Zadow (1832-1851). In November 1855, after Elisabeth's early death, he married the dancer Anna Theen (1833–1872), who bore him three children, Wilhelm (1855–1872), Friedrich (1857–1918) and Karoline (1851–1864).

In the meantime, Flotow had been appointed court theater manager in Schwerin in 1855 and was appointed chamberlain for the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg. For the inauguration of the New Schwerin Palace, he composed the opera Johann Albrecht, Duke of Mecklenburg in 1857 . La Veuve Grapin also comes from this creative period . In 1863 he gave up his post and moved to Vienna, where he joined the artist community Die Grüne Insel , for which he composed many songs. Flotow later participated in the founding of the German cooperative of dramatic authors and composers , which, similar to today's GEMA , was supposed to protect the composers' copyrights.

After von Flotow divorced his wife Anna in Vienna in 1867/68, he married her sister Rosina Theen (1846–1925) on August 9, 1868. From this marriage a daughter was born.

From 1870 to 1872 Flotow lived in Wiener Neustadt at Wiener Straße 31.

Memorial plaque in Wiener Neustadt
Grave of Friedrich von Flotow in the old cemetery in Darmstadt
Grave of Friedrich von Flotow in the old cemetery in Darmstadt

From 1880 on, Flotow lived with his sister Bernhardine Rößner in Darmstadt, where he had bought a villa . There he died almost completely blind on January 24, 1883 - three weeks before Richard Wagner . His grave is in the old cemetery in Darmstadt (grave site: III E 1/2/3/42/43/44).

style

Among his other compositions are appealing music to Shakespeare's Winter Tales , some overtures , piano trios , two piano concertos and a number of songs .

Von Flotow cannot be considered a pioneering clay poet. Among other things, he leaned on composers of the Opéra comique - namely Auber and Boieldieu , but also Offenbach - whose witty grace he appropriated to a certain degree. In general, however, Flotow did not adopt a distinctive personal style, but composed eclecticism . Song-like elements refer to the German folk song. Most strikingly characteristic, however, are the soloist themes based on Italian melodramma, which are strongly reminiscent of Donizetti .

There is no spoken dialogue in Flotow's operas. However, they are not composed through-composed like Wagner's operas, but consist of individual chanting pieces that are linked by recitative passages.

All in all, a certain originality cannot be denied in his works, and even the more severe critic must recognize the light, lively movement, the graceful flow of melodies, the skilful and effective instrumentation that make Flotow's operas easily consumable. It was not without reason that Martha was the most frequently performed opera in the second half of the 19th century.

Works (selection)

Flotow created an extensive work in his life, but most of the compositional estate was destroyed in a fire in the archive of the Bote & Bock publishing house in Berlin during World War II. The personal estate has been lost with a few exceptions. In 1955, the private Flotow archive was founded in Darmstadt as the central collection point.

Stage works

Operas

  • Pierre et Cathérine , 1833 Paris → German Peter and Kathinka , 1834 Ludwigslust
  • Rob Roy (with Paul Duport and Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Desforges), 1836 Royaumont
  • Le Naufrage de la Méduse , 1839 Paris → German The Sailors , 1845 Hamburg
  • L'Esclave de Camoëns , 1843 Paris (German): Indra, the snake girl , 1852 Vienna
  • Alessandro Stradella , 1844 Hamburg
  • Martha or The Market of Richmond , 1847 Vienna, filmed in 1916: Martha
  • The Grand Duchess Sophia Catarina , 1850 Berlin
  • Rübezahl , 1853 Frankfurt am Main
  • Albin or The Foster Son , 1856 Vienna
  • Johann Albrecht, Duke of Mecklenburg , 1857 Schwerin
  • La Veuve Grapin , 1859 Paris → German The Widow Grapin , 1962 Berlin
  • Am Runenstein (opera in 2 sections), 1865 Vienna
  • L'Ombre , 1870 Paris (German: Ein Schatten , 1871 Vienna)
  • La Fleur d'Harlem , 1876 Turin

Ballets

  • Lady Harriette ou La Servante de Greenwich (Act 1), 1844 Paris
  • The Thetis Group , 1858 Schwerin
  • The Tannkönig, a Christmas fairy tale , 1861 Schwerin

Instrumental works

Orchestral works

  • Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, 1830
  • Piano Concerto No. 2 in A minor, 1831
  • Jubelouverture in F major, 1852
  • Torch dance in E flat major, 1853

Chamber music

  • 6 Chants du soir for cello and piano, 1839 (with Jacques Offenbach); Music publisher Zimmermann 1995
  • 6 Rêveries for violoncello and piano, 1839 (with Jacques Offenbach); Edition Massonneau 2014
  • Trio de salon in A minor for violin, cello and piano, 1845; Edition Massonneau 2013
  • Sonata for violin and piano in A major op. 14, 1861; Edition Dohr 2012
  • Fantasia for flute and piano op.16 (another work is registered under op.16 with Bothe and Bock)
  • Nocturne for oboe and piano (with Carl Wacker), op. 47; tre media
  • Quartet for violin, cello, horn and piano in G minor
  • String quartet; Accolade 2011

Piano music

  • Pièce à quatre mains , 1833
  • Trois Valses allemandes, un galop et une mazurka , 1833
  • 6 etudes for piano four hands, 1874

Songs

  • 4 Savoyard songs op.17 , 1875
  • 3 songs and ballads:
Homesickness: "I want to go home again"
Song of the wet nurse: "Close your eyes, lovely boy"
Spring wish
  • 3 songs:
Silvia: "Will he ever return"
Serenade: "For an hour"
Longing for the nightingale
  • 4 songs: (No. 1 and 4 lost)
2. Christabel
3. "Alone, not yet alone"

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich von Flotow  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. The often found date of birth on April 26th is wrong. → Fritz Kaiser, Flotow , in: MGG Person Teil (Vol. 6), Kassel 2 2001, Sp. 1360.
  2. Flotow was baptized on May 3, 1812.
  3. The statement frequently found in the literature that he was a baron is wrong. → Ibid.
  4. a b c Clive Unger-Hamilton, Neil Fairbairn, Derek Walters; German arrangement: Christian Barth, Holger Fliessbach, Horst Leuchtmann, et al .: The music - 1000 years of illustrated music history . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8122-0132-1 , p. 119 .
  5. The son that emerged from this marriage died at the age of nine months. → Ibid, Col. 1361.