Hans Rott (musician)

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Johann Nepomuk Karl Maria Rott (born August 1, 1858 in Braunhirschengrund , † June 25, 1884 in Vienna ) was an Austrian composer and organist .

Life

Rott was the illegitimate son of the then famous Viennese actor Karl Mathias Rott , recognized after his parents' marriage (1862) in 1863 , who had to give up his career in 1874 due to a stage accident and died in 1876. Despite his poor financial situation (his mother Maria Rott had already died in 1872), Rott was able to study at the Vienna Conservatory and became an organ student and favorite student of Anton Bruckner , who valued his skills highly. Also included Franz Krenn (composition), Hermann Graedener (harmony) and Leopold Landskron (piano) with his teachers.

The following people were enrolled in his composition class at the Vienna Conservatory: Mathilde Kralik , Gustav Mahler , Rudolf Krzyzanowski , Rudolf Pichler, Katharina Haus and Ernst Ludwig. When the Concours for Composition took place on July 2, 1878, all music students named here were examined. All participants received prizes, only Hans Rott's concours work, the first movement of his symphony, remained without a prize. According to Bruckner's account, the examining committee laughed mockingly at the hearing of the symphony. Bruckner is said to have got up and said: “Don't laugh, gentlemen, you will hear great things from the man”.

Rott left the composition school without a diploma or a medal. His leaving certificate, however, shows that he passed the examination in composition with excellent results.

From 1876 to 1878 Rott held a position as organist at the Piarist Church in Vienna, then devoted himself - in addition to private lessons - to composition, especially his symphony in E major. However, this major work was judged negatively by Johannes Brahms and a performance by the interested conductor Hans Richter was postponed due to time constraints. When an application for a state scholarship was also rejected, Rott left Vienna in 1880 to take up a position as a choirmaster in Mulhouse . On departure there, his severe mental illness manifested itself - at the time referred to as “hallucinatory insanity and paranoia”. Saying goodbye to Vienna evidently meant such a heavy burden that a personal catastrophe occurred on the train. Rott threatened a fellow passenger with the revolver when he tried to light a cigar because Brahms had had the train filled with dynamite. Rott was brought back to Vienna, where he was initially admitted to the psychiatric clinic, and in 1881 to the Lower Austrian insane asylum . He spent the rest of his short life there, receiving visits from friends, composing occasionally, but also destroying many of his works. He died of tuberculosis in 1884 . Hugo Wolf is said to have called Brahms the murderer Rotts and to have made serious accusations against Bruckner Brahms at the grave.

Memorial plaque on the grave of Hans Rott

Hans Rott was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery. The grave is in group 23, row 2, place no. 59. It has since been reassigned and is now called "Black / Sahora". An additionally attached memorial plaque refers to Hans Rott.

Works (selection)

Hans Rott left behind a large number of vocal and instrumental music. In the course of his illness he destroyed part of his work. His work as a symphony orchestra player is best known. His instrumental music consists of orchestral works, chamber music and works for individual instruments.

Chamber music

  • Badger study for string quintet in D major
  • Fugue for string quartet in D major
  • Pater Noster for bass or baritone, string quartet and double bass in G major
  • Quartet movement in C major
  • Movement for string quartet in G major op. I.
  • Movement for string quartet in C major op.VII
  • String Quartet in C minor

Piano works

  • Andantino in F major
  • Fugue in C major
  • Fugue for 4 hands in C minor
  • Idyll in D major
  • Minuet in D flat major (1875)
  • Scherzo in A minor
  • Scene from Schiller's " Glocke "

Orchestral works

  • Orchestra prelude in E major (1876)
  • Hamlet Overture in A minor (1876)
  • Prelude to " Julius Caesar " in B flat major (1877)
  • Suite for orchestra in B flat major (1877)
  • Pastoral prelude for orchestra in F major (1877–1880)
  • Symphony No. 1 in E major (1878–1880)
  • Symphony No. 2 (1880)
  • Suite in E major
  • Symphony for string orchestra in A flat major (1874–1875, fragment)
  • Symphony finale in F major (1876, fragment)
  • March of the Scharwache for orchestra (1876, fragment)

Symphony No. 1 in E major

Rott's Symphony in E major, like his other works in the Austrian National Library since 1950, was published in an arrangement by Paul Banks in the 1980s and premiered in 1989 in Cincinnati , Ohio , USA by the Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra . It is a modern-looking work that anticipates elements of Gustav Mahler's symphonies and is strongly reminiscent of Bruckner's (especially in the corner movements) organic orchestration .

The composition was written at the same time as the first version of Mahler's cantata Das klagende Lied and nine years before the premiere of Mahler's first symphony . Mahler was Rott's classmate in Krenn's composition class; he knew and valued Rott's work and - according to Natalie Bauer-Lechner's memories - placed it consciously and appreciatively in a context of his own work. All of Rott's compositions are postponed works that were unpublished during his lifetime. While Mahler was able to delete or edit his studies or youth works in more mature years, Hans Rott did not have this opportunity before the subsequent reception.

Recordings / sound carriers

literature

  • Ingvar Hellsing Lundqvist (Ed.): "How to kill a genius." Roman, from the Swedish by Jürgen Vater. Picus Verlag Vienna 2019, ISBN 978-3-7117-2074-0 .
  • Uwe Harten : Rott (own Roth), family. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7001-3046-5 .
  • Uwe Harten (Ed.): Hans Rott (1858–1884). Biography, letters, notes and documents from the estate of Maja Loehr (1888–1964). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-7001-2943-2 .
  • Uwe Harten:  Rott, Hans. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 136 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Uwe Harten, Johannes Volker Schmidt (ed.): “The cause for which my life stands.” Studies on the life and work of the Viennese composer Hans Rott . Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2014, ISBN 978-3-487-15160-1 .
  • Helmuth Kreysing, Frank Litterscheid: More than Mahler's zero! The influence of Hans Rott's E major symphony on Gustav Mahler. In: Heinz-Klaus Metzger , Rainer Riehn (eds.): Gustav Mahler - The unknown acquaintance (= music concepts 91). Edition Text and Criticism, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-88377-521-5 , p. 46 ff.
  • Heinz-Klaus Metzger, Rainer Riehn (eds.): Hans Rott - The founder of the new symphony. With contributions by Helmuth Kreysing, Frank Litterscheid and Maja Loehr (= music concepts 103/104). Edition Text and Criticism, München 1999, ISBN 3-88377-608-4 .
  • Erich Wolfgang Partsch : On the continued life of the artist through art or: The miraculous resurrection of Hans Rott in Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony. In: Ute Jung-Kaiser , Matthias Kruse (eds.): "What the angels tell me ..." Mahler's dreamlike counter-worlds (= waymark music 6). Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2011, ISBN 978-3-487-14595-2 , pp. 169–177.
  • Johannes Volker Schmidt: Hans Rott - life and work (= studies and materials for musicology, volume 59). Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-487-14222-7 .
  • Johannes Volker Schmidt: "Here I always have to stop ..." On the importance of Hans Rott for the works of Gustav Mahler. In: Musicologica Austriaca , 30 (2011), ISSN  1016-1066 , pp. 73-108.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Bahr : Love of the Living. Diaries 1921/23. Borgmeyer, Hildesheim, 1925, III, 223.
  2. ^ Hans Rott - catalog raisonné website about Hans Rott. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  3. ↑ www.hans-rott.de
personal data
SURNAME Rott, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rott, Johann Nepomuk Karl Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian composer and organist
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunhirschengrund
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1884
Place of death Vienna