Julius Rietz

August Wilhelm Julius Rietz

Grave of Julius Rietz in the Trinitatisfriedhof in Dresden

August Wilhelm Julius Rietz (born December 28, 1812 in Berlin , † September 12, 1877 in Dresden ) was a German conductor , composition teacher and composer .

Life

Rietz was the son of the chamber musician Johann Friedrich Rietz (born June 12, 1767 in Lübben (Spreewald) ; † December 25, 1828 in Berlin). His older brother was the violinist Eduard Rietz . Julius Rietz trained as a cellist with Moritz Ganz and Bernhard Romberg and studied composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter .

At the age of 16 he joined the orchestra of the Königsstädtisches Theater . Rietz got to know the famous composer through his brother's friendship with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy . After mediation by Mendelssohn Bartholdy, he came to the theater in Düsseldorf in 1834 as the second conductor . In 1835 Rietz succeeded Mendelssohn Bartholdy as first conductor and in 1836 as municipal conductor. When he was called to Leipzig, Rietz was theater music director from 1847 to 1854 and took over the management of the Leipziger Singakademie . In the years 1848–54 and 1856–60 Rietz was also conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and composition teacher at the Leipzig Conservatory for Music and Theater . Here he worked again with Ferdinand David as Kapellmeister, with whom he had already played as a teenager in the Berlin Königsstädtische Theater. Rietz's work is strongly influenced by Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

In 1860 Rietz was appointed court conductor to Dresden (where he discovered Schranck No: II ) and in 1870 he was artistic director of the Royal Conservatory for Music and Theater in Dresden . In 1859 Rietz was awarded a doctorate (Dr. phil. Hc) by representatives of the University of Leipzig . From 1874 Rietz was the Royal Saxon General Music Director . From 1874 to 1877 he was in charge of editing the Breitkopf & Härtel complete edition of Mendelssohn's works. He was the teacher of the well-known Dresden choir director and composer Hugo Richard Jüngst .

Rietz died in Dresden in 1877 and was buried in the Trinity cemetery there.

Works (selection)

Operas

• The hermits. 1834.
• Jery ​​and Bätely, the girl from abroad. 1839.
• The corsair. 1850.
• Georg Neumark and the viol. 1859.

Overtures

• Opus 11, Hero and Leander
• Opus 53, comedy overture

Concerts

• Opus 29, Clarinet Concerto in G minor

Others

• Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13 (1843)
• Symphony No. 2 in A major, Op. 23 (1846)
• Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, op.31 (1854/55)
• Old German battle song
• Dithyrambe for male choir and orchestra op.20
• Compositions in: Düsseldorfer Lieder-Album: 6 songs with piano accompaniment. Arnz, Düsseldorf 1851. ( Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf )

Honors

• Honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig
• Knight's Cross of the Order of Albrecht
• North Star Order
• Julius-Rietz-Strasse in Düsseldorf and Rietzstrasse in Dresden bear his name.

literature

• Moritz Fürstenau : On the sixtieth birthday of an artist . In: The Gazebo . Issue 50, 1872, pp. 819-821 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
• Moritz Fürstenau:  Rietz, Julius . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 28, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 603-606.

Web links

Commons : Julius Rietz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Julius Rietz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Julius Rietz's estate in the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library (largely lost during the war)
• Works by and about Julius Rietz  in the German Digital Library
• Sheet music and audio files by Julius Rietz in the International Music Score Library Project
• List of works on Klassika - the German-language classical pages