Pierre-Louis Dietsch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pierre-Louis Dietsch

Pierre-Louis-Philippe Dietsch (born March 17, 1808 in Dijon , † February 20, 1865 in Paris ) was a French conductor, choirmaster and composer. His name is inextricably linked to some of the most spectacular plagiarism allegations and scandals in 19th century music history, although his role is seen more nuanced in the light of recent research.

Life

Dietsch first studied at the Institution Royale de Musique Classique et Religieuse , later at the Paris Conservatory . His first career stages were the position of Kapellmeister at the parish church of St-Eustache de Paris , double bass player at the Théâtre Italien and teaching at the Académie Nationale de musique et de danse and the École Niedermeyer . At Gioachino Rossini's instigation , he became choirmaster at the Paris Opera , and in 1860 he became orchestra director there. After his release there he worked at the chapel of La Madeleine and as a teacher at the École Niedermeyer . His pupil Gabriel Fauré described Dietsch as a “methodical but retrograde spirit”.

As a composer, he mainly created church music, including more than 20 masses and various organ works.

The " Ave Maria von Arcadelt"

In March 1842, Pierre-Louis Dietsch performed an Ave Maria for four-part a cappella choir in a choir concert , which he said he had discovered in the work of the Dutch Renaissance composer Jakob Arcadelt . However, since such a work was not verifiable in Arcadelt's oeuvre, and also because of errors in metrics and prosody that were atypical for the era , the composition was soon considered a forgery by Dietsch.

Dietsch was not partially rehabilitated until 1927 when the musicologist André Pirro was able to prove that the melody of the Ave Maria actually came from Arcadelt, but from his three-part secular chanson Nous voyons que les hommes . The spiritual counterfacture and the romantic four-part choral setting , on the other hand, are solely the work of Dietsch.

Composer of the "Flying Dutchman"

On November 9, 1842, Dietsch's opera Le vaisseau fantôme, ou Le maudit des mers , based on a design by Richard Wagner , premiered at the Paris Opera . Wagner offered this prose draft to the Paris Opera out of financial difficulties and tried in vain to get a paid commission from the opera house to compose the work, but the commission went to Dietsch; the libretto was by Paul Foucher and Henry Révoil. It is not simply a translation of Wagner's poem The Flying Dutchman , but an independent work that has only the basic theme in common with the Dutchman . After selling his opera draft to the Paris Opera, Wagner processed the idea himself into his Flying Dutchman.

Scandal surrounding the Paris premiere of Tannhauser

In March 1861, the first performance of the Paris version of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser and the Sängerkrieg on Wartburg , which was led by Dietsch as conductor, turned out to be such a fiasco that the production had to be canceled after only three performances. The main reason for this was that Wagner incorporated a ballet interlude in the adaptation of his opera as a concession to the taste of the French audience, but atypically right at the beginning of the opera, and not, as was usual in French operas at this time, in the second act certain "clubs" disrupted the performance with whistles and heckling. Annoyed, Wagner withdrew the work after the third performance.

However, Wagner's anger was directed independently of Dietsch, whom he considered incapable and who had resisted his suggestion to let Wagner conduct at least one rehearsal himself in order to work out the nuances of the work with Dietsch and the other contributors. In a letter to the director of the opera, Wagner complained in vain about the “incompetent and inadequate” conductor who was “forced upon him”.

Dietsch had learned nothing from the experience with the Tannhauser . Two years later, in 1863, during the rehearsals for the Sicilian Vespers , he got into an argument with the composer Giuseppe Verdi who was present , and he left the hall. Three days later the management of the Opera Relieved Dietsch from his duties.

Works

Stage works

  • Le vaisseau fantôme, ou Le maudit des mers, opéra fantastique en deux actes (Libretto by Paul Foucher and Henry Révoil, Paris, Opéra, November 9, 1842)
  • Ballet numbers for Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber (1847)

Sacred vocal music

  • 25 trade fairs
  • 2 requiems (one in memory of Adolphe Adam )
  • Répertoire des maîtrises et des chapelles… depuis Palestrina jusqu'à nos jours, with organ accompaniment (3 volumes 1841–65)
  • Te Deum , 5 solo vv, choir, orch (1844)
  • Numerous chants, 4 volumes (1848–61)
  • 32 motets, 3 volumes (1848–63)
  • Répertoire de musique religieuse… de la Madeleine (1854–57; contains numerous works by Dietsch)

organ

  • Repertoire complete de l'organiste contenant des morceaux pour toutes les parties de l'office divin (1840)
  • Accompagnement d'orgue… pour le graduel romain (approx. 1855), collab. Abbé Tessier

Arrangements of works by Thoinot Arbeau , Jean-Baptiste Lully , Christoph Willibald Gluck , Louis Clapisson

swell

literature

  • Emile Haraszti: Pierre-Louis Dietsch and his victims. (Arcadelt, Bellini, Liszt, Verdi, Wagner and Weber) In: Die Musikforschung, 8 (1955), pp. 39–58.
  • Bernd Laroche: The Flying Dutchman: Effect and change of a motif - Heinrich Heine - Richard Wagner - Edward Fitzball - Paul Foucher and Henry Revoil - Pierre-Louis Dietsch . Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / New York / Paris / Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-631-45891-6 .
  • G. Leprince: The Flying Dutchman in the Setting by Philippe Dietch. In: Musical Quarterly, 1 (1964), pp. 307-20.

Web links

Commons : Pierre-Louis Dietsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Dietsch, Pierre-Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dietsch, Pierre-Louis-Philippe (full name); Dietsch, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French conductor, choir director and composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1808
PLACE OF BIRTH Dijon
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1865
Place of death Paris