Richard Engländer (musician)

Bernhard Wilhelm Otto Richard Engländer (born February 17, 1889 in Leipzig ; † March 16, 1966 in Uppsala , Sweden ) was a German musicologist , composer and harpsichordist .

Life

Training in Leipzig and Berlin

Engländer was born in Leipzig as the son of the Imperial Court Counselor Bernhard Engländer. His mother, Rosalie, was born in Pringsheim; the relatives of the English included Katja Mann and Max Liebermann . The family of Jewish origin, from which numerous important scientists and lawyers came from on their father's side, had already converted to Protestantism at the beginning of the 19th century .

Englishmen attended the St. Thomas School in Leipzig . He then studied at the Leipzig Conservatory . His teachers at the Conservatory included Paul Klengel (cello), Leonid Kreutzer (piano) and Karl Straube (organ). He trained in composition with Joseph Gustav Mraczek (1878–1944) in Dresden . At the University of Leipzig he learned musicology from Hugo Riemann and Arnold Schering as well as German and history. In 1908 Engländer went to Berlin and expanded his musicological knowledge with Johannes Wolf and especially Hermann Kretzschmar , who seemed to him "the ideal for a young, music-interested student".

He went on study trips to Italy , Sweden and Denmark , where he mainly researched Johann Gottlieb Naumann . He finished his dissertation on Johann Gottlieb Naumann as an opera composer in 1914 and was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD. The dissertation was published in an expanded form in 1922 under the title Johann Gottlieb Naumann as an Opera Composer. With new contributions to the music history of Dresden and Stockholm and is considered the main work of the English.

Years in Dresden

The English took part in the First World War, were wounded and awarded the Iron Cross . He came to Dresden in 1919 and worked, among other things, as a harpsichordist and teacher. Fritz Busch engaged him in 1922 as his assistant at the Semperoper . He worked as an accompanist and assistant director of the opera choir and was so involved in their production of cutting-edge performances, including the staging of Boris Godunov in the season 1922/23 with the participation of Isay Dobrowen , that of Max Slevogt appointed Don Giovanni (1924) and the World premieres of the operas Intermezzo (1924), Doctor Faust (1925) and Cardillac (1926), which “went down in operatic history”.

Engländer worked as Kapellmeister at the opera of the Bühnenvolksbund and from 1926 taught music history at the orchestral school of the Saxon State Orchestra. He regularly published articles on Dresden's musical life in magazines, including the Dresdner Anzeiger .

The Englishman who was persecuted by the National Socialists for “racial” reasons had to give up his teaching position in 1935. As a pianist and harpsichord player, he was no longer allowed to perform in public and earned money from private lessons. From 1937 he was interrogated several times and in 1939 he was arrested and taken to Gaaden near Vienna , but released after acquaintances were called in. Part of his property was expropriated. In 1939 the English managed to escape to Sweden .

Exile in Sweden

The English settled in Uppsala. He initially earned his living by taking piano lessons and playing the harpsichord in Uppsala Cathedral . In 1948 he became a music lecturer at Uppsala University and received an honorary doctorate from this university in 1955 . As early as 1952, the Englishman represented Knud Jeppesen (1892–1974) at Aarhus University in Denmark for a short time . On December 17, 1965 was him by King Gustav VI. Adolf was awarded the title of "Professor".

Englander had already been hospitalized in October 1965 after a collapse. Engländer died in Uppsala in 1966 shortly after his 77th birthday. The funeral service took place in Uppsala Cathedral. His estate is administered by the University Library in Uppsala.

Act

Engländer's ideal was to “unite the performing musician and the scientist in one person”, and so in Englander's life music theory alternated with active teaching and making music.

In his musicological works Engländer dealt with Dresden, Italy and Sweden. While he had already dealt with the Dresden composer Naumann in his dissertation, later works were dedicated to the artists Joseph Schuster , Giovanni Andrea Bontempi and Marco Giuseppe Peranda . In Sweden he dealt intensively with the composer Joseph Martin Kraus and published his monograph Joseph Martin Kraus and the Gustavian Opera in Uppsala in 1943 . Projects that had been started on the history of the Gustavian Opera and on the lied compositions of Joseph Martin Kraus remained unfinished.

Another central work within Englander's oeuvre was the comprehensive book Die Dresdner Instrumentalmusik in der Wiener Klassik , published in 1956. In the 1950s, several essays by Englishmen also dealt with the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck . While still in hospital, Engländer took care of the completion of the sheet music edition of Gluck's complete works in 1965, which appeared in 1966 under the title Complete Works . Between 1953 and 1960, Engländer published numerous other sheet music editions by well-known composers, including editions on works by Johann Adolph Hasse , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Georg Friedrich Handel .

His own compositions included cello and viol sonatas, works for male choir, orchestral works, chamber music works and songs for one voice and piano, including settings of works by Rainer Maria Rilke and Richard Dehmel and Clemens Brentano . Except for three works for male choirs that appeared in Sweden in the 1940s, they remained unprinted.

In an obituary for the Englishman, his importance as a German in Sweden was also discussed:

“Sweden, the subject of musicology especially in Uppsala, musical practice throughout the country, in Stockholm and in Drottninghom in particular, has lost a lot with him. Strong impulses came from him. For Sweden, he was at the same time a tireless pioneer and worthy representative of great German music and educational tradition. "

- Gerhard Croll, 1966

Works (selection)

Monographs

• 1916: Johann Gottlieb Naumann as opera composer (diss.)
• 1922: Johann Gottlieb Naumann as an opera composer. With new contributions on the music history of Dresden and Stockholm (extended version, reprint 1970)
• 1943: Joseph Martin Kraus and the Gustavian Opera
• 1956: The Dresden instrumental music in the time of the Viennese classical music

Compositions

• 1943: Nyss juninattglabsen, text: Åke Leander (work for male choir)
• 1943: Sensommar, text: Åke Leander, Stockholm (work for male choir)
• 1943: Majbön, text: Einar Malm, Stockholm (work for male choir)

Other compositions by Englander are available as unpublished manuscripts.

Sheet music editions

• 1953: Johann Adolf Hasse - Sonata in E minor
• 1954: Johann Adolf Hasse - Concerto in D major
• 1955: Johann David Heinichen - Concerto grosso, G major
• 1956: Benedetto Marcello - violin concerto
• 1960: Joseph Martin Kraus - works
• 1965: Benedetto Marcello - Concerto D major for violin and string orchestra
• 1966: Christoph Willibald Gluck - Complete Works

Essays

• 1918: The end of the opera seria in Dresden / Naumann's Clemenzia di Tito 1769; in: New Archive for Saxon History and Archeology, No. 39
• 1920: Dresden and the German opera in the last third of the 18th century; in: Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, III / 1
• 1941: On the question of “Dafne” (1671) by GA Bontempi and MG Peranda; in: Acta Musicologica
• 1955: On the edition of JD Heinichen's Concerto in G major; in: Svensk Tidskrift för musikforskning

literature

• Gerhard Croll: Richard Engländer in memory . In: Die Musikforschung , Vol. 19, 1966, pp. 361–363.
• Anna Amalie Ebert: Englishman, Richard . In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove. Dictionary of Music and Musicians . 2nd Edition, Volume 8. Macmillan, London 2001, pp. 240-241.
• Hans Schnoor: Englishman, Richard . In: Friedrich Blume (Ed.): The music in past and present. General encyclopedia of music . Volume 3. Bärenreiter / DTV, Munich 1989, pp. 1360-1361.

Web links

• Works by and about Richard Engländer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Richard Engländer in the Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians from the Nazi Era (LexM)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Quoted from Croll, p. 361.
2. ↑ Schnoor, p. 1360.
3. ↑ See Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians from the Nazi Era .
4. ↑ Croll, p. 362.
5. ↑ Croll writes that he was a prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp . See Croll, p. 363; Gaaden near Vienna, however, according to LexM .
6. ↑ Croll, p. 361.
7. ^ Gerhard Croll: Richard Engländer for memory. 1966, p. 363.