Otto Dresel (composer)

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Otto Dresel, Four Piano Pieces , title page of the first edition (1860)

Otto Dresel (born December 20, 1826 in Geisenheim , † July 26, 1890 in Beverly near Boston ) was a German-American pianist and composer .

Life

Dresel studied with Moritz Hauptmann in Leipzig and with Ferdinand Hiller and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy . From 1845 to 1851 he also corresponded with Robert Schumann . In addition to songs and piano pieces, he wrote a piano trio in A minor and a piano quartet in F major from 1846 to 1848 , which were only published in 2009 by the composer and musicologist David Francis Urrows from Dresden's estate.

In 1848 Dresel took part in the German revolution , got into trouble and moved to the USA that same year . He initially lived in New York City , where he was supported by Theodore Eisfeld , who was also from Germany and the chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic . In 1852 he moved to Boston , Massachusetts , and later lived in Beverly.

Dresel soon made a name for himself in Boston as an outstanding pianist. He composed mainly chamber music and songs as well as large-scale settings based on poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes for soloists with orchestra.

The high reputation that Dresel enjoyed in Boston is particularly evident in his Army Hymn, based on a text by Oliver Wendell Holmes, which he composed in 1862 on behalf of the city for the Emancipation Day Concert on January 1, 1863. The city celebrated the emancipation proclamation of US President Abraham Lincoln , which came into force on January 1, 1863, and with which slavery was officially abolished in the southern states .

In addition, he campaigned for the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel on his travels through the United States . In 1883 he founded the Boston Bach Club, which he led until his death.

family

On October 29, 1863, he married Anna Loring (1830-1896), a daughter of Ellis Gray Loring , an abolitionist and founder of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. The couple had two children, Louisa Loring Dresel (* 1864) and Ellis Loring Dresel (1865-1925). The latter later became a lawyer and diplomat.

Works (selection)

Otto Dresel, Army Hymn , title page of the first edition (1863)
  • Op. 1, Six Chants , Leipzig: Kistner, 1846
  • Op. 2, Six Songs , Leipzig: Whistling, 1847
  • Op. 3, Six Songs , Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1848
  • Op. 4, From the children's world. Six songs , Leipzig: Whistling, 1854
  • Op. 5, Four Piano Pieces , Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1860
  • Army Hymn for baritone , choir (ad libitum) and piano, Boston: GD Russell, 1863 (orchestral version lost)
  • Collected Vocal Music , ed. by David Francis Urrows, Middleton, Wisconsin: AR Editions, Inc., 2002 (= Recent Researches in American Music , Volume 45), ISBN 0-89579-509-4
  • Chamber Music , ed. by David Francis Urrows, Middleton, Wisconsin: AR Editions, Inc., 2009 (= Recent Researches in American Music , Volume 68), ISBN 0-89579-642-2 ; 978-0-89579-642-4
  • Keyboard Music , ed. by David Francis Urrows, Middleton, Wisconsin: AR Editions, Inc., 2015 (= Recent Researches in American Music , Volume 77), ISBN 978-0-89579-820-6 ( digitized version )

literature

  • Hugo Riemanns Musik-Lexikon , 10th edition, edited by Alfred Einstein , Berlin 1922, p. 304 f. ( Text archive - Internet Archive ).
  • David Francis Urrows: "Apollo in Athens": Otto Dresel and Boston 1850–90. In: American Music. Volume 12, No. 4 (Winter) 1994, pp. 345-388 ( digitized version )
  • Nancy B. Reich , Robert Schumann's Music in New York City, 1848–1898 , in: Schumanniana Nova. Festschrift Gerd Nauhaus on his 60th birthday , Sinzig 2002, pp. 569–595
  • David Francis Urrows, "Life on a Higher Pedestal": Otto Dresel's Bach Club (1883–1890) , in: American Choral Review , Vol. 45, No. 1 (2003), pp. 1-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cf. Charles Henry Pope, Loring Genealogy , Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1917, p. 256 ( digitized version )
personal data
SURNAME Dresel, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1826
PLACE OF BIRTH Geisenheim
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1890
Place of death Beverly near Boston