Gustav Pressel

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Bronze plaque with the portrait of Gustav Pressel in Hann. Münden , created by Gustav Eberlein

Gustav Pressel (born June 11, 1827 in Tübingen , † July 30, 1890 in Berlin ) was a German composer .

Life

His parents were the chief helper and later dean Johann Gottfried Pressel and Friederike Elisabeth born. Hunter. A cultural life was cultivated in the parental home with contacts to Eduard Mörike and Wilhelm Waiblinger, among others . The musically talented Gustav Pressel received piano lessons in his youth and was supported musically by the Tübingen University Music Director Friedrich Silcher . Like his brothers, however, at the request of his father, he first studied Protestant theology in Blaubeuren and Tübingen and was a prominent member of the fraternity -based student association " Tübinger Königsgesellschaft Roigel ". During the seminar time in Blaubeuren from 1841 to 1845 Pressel was hardly able to devote himself to music, but during his academic years in Tübingen from 1845 to 1849 he was already publishing works and compositions on music theory. Some of his compositions, including the grave song When two hearts part, based on a poem by Emanuel Geibel , soon found their way into the standard repertoire of male choirs.

After the first state examination in theology, Pressel came to Köngen as vicar in 1849 , where he quickly aroused the dean's displeasure by devoting himself more to music than to his pastoral work. In the autumn of 1849, Pressel moved to Nippenburg to replace his brother Paul Pressel , who was staying in Paris, as court master to Baron von Holtz . Then in the spring of 1850 he lived again with his mother, who was now widowed, in Tübingen. From there he tried on various occasions for support for studying music in Vienna, which, after a few failures, was finally granted by the state in the autumn of 1850.

In autumn 1850 he began studying music in Vienna , with a focus on counterpoint with Simon Sechter . Subsequently, his paths led initially to Weimar , where Franz Liszt , who had become aware of the young composer, invited him and where he came into contact with Hans von Bülow and Joseph Joachim Raff . In 1852 he came to Leipzig , where he heard lectures on Johann Sebastian Bach from Moritz Hauptmann and made the acquaintance of Anton Rubinstein . Another support from the Württemberg king enabled him to go on a study trip to Italy from 1858 to 1860, where he composed his first opera, Die St.-Johannis-Nacht . After several successful performances in Stuttgart, Pressel fell out with the Stuttgart artistic director, withdrew his opera and, after a stay at a spa in Switzerland, took a position as music director in Montbéliard, France . There he dealt mainly theoretically with the history of French opera. In 1866 he returned to Stuttgart, where his second opera Der Schneider von Ulm was written, which was successfully performed in several places in Württemberg.

After Pressel's hope for the post of university music director in Tübingen or a professorship at another Württemberg university was not fulfilled, he turned to Berlin in 1868, where he hoped to take over the management of the Berliner Symphoniker. But he was also denied this position, so he settled down as a piano teacher in Steglitz and married Charlotte Eichelkraut, a Berliner from Berlin. In Berlin he initially devoted himself to music theory studies, which in 1881 resulted in a sensational work on Mozart's Requiem. He also published around forty other compositions in Berlin.

In the course of the 1880s, Pressel withdrew more and more from the public. Over time, material worries, illness and a mental illness set in his wife Charlotte. On August 13, 1888, he married a second time, this time the much younger Emilie Döpke. But like the first, the second marriage remained childless. In 1889 Pressel finally fell ill with tongue cancer, which was treated unsuccessfully in Stuttgart and Berlin and from which Pressel died in Berlin at the end of July 1890 after severe suffering at the age of 63.

Pressel was buried in Cemetery I of the Jerusalem and New Churches in Berlin. The grave is preserved.

Act

Pressel has composed two operas and numerous piano works, forty of them during his time in Berlin. Like his teacher Friedrich Silcher, Pressel took the texts for many of his songs from folk song poetry and set them to music "with a warm, soulful swing" and with "expressive melodies". Outstanding among his compositions are the sacred song Preghiera and the ballad Barbarossa (1887), which were already praised by contemporaries, while in his Deutsche Volkbildern (1885) mainly Swabian style elements can be identified and refer to his origin. Pressel is also the composer of the Weserlied ("Here I have so many lovely times ...") based on a text by Franz von Dingelstedt , which he set to music in Weimar in 1845.

As a music theorist, he made a special contribution to Mozart research.

Works

Operas:

  • St. John's Night , first performed in 1860.
  • The tailor from Ulm , around 1867.

Settings (examples):

Publications of his works

  • Three songs based on poems by Eduard Mörike. Laurentius-Musikverlag, Frankfurt (Main) 2005
  • Seven songs for voice and piano based on poems by Emanuel Geibel, Eduard Mörike, Ludwig Uhland, Nikolaus Lenau and from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn". Laurentius-Musikverlag, Frankfurt (Main) 2006

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 215.
  2. ↑ Haering 1948, p. 230.

literature

  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , pp. 548-549.
  • Kurt Haering: Gustav Pressel, composer and music writer, 1827–1890 , in: Schwäbische Lebensbilder IV , Stuttgart 1948, pp. 223–232.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pressel, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Tübingen
DATE OF DEATH July 30, 1890
Place of death Berlin