Reinecke: Flute Concerto / Harp Concerto / Ballade

Description

Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) Harp Concerto in E minor, Op. 182 Flute Concerto in D major, Op. 283 Ballade, Op. 288   Carl Reinecke is probably better remembered as a teacher than as a composer, with a range of pupils to his credit, from Sullivan and Svendsen to Grieg and Weingartner. He was born in Altona in 1824, the son of a musician, himself the son of a shoemaker, who was largely self-taught in music, and who provided his son with a sound basis for his future career. Carl Reinecke showed early musical ability and made his debut as a pianist in 1835. From 1845 he toured widely in Europe, and gave concerts with the violinist H.W. Ernst, among others, accepting the position of court pianist in Copenhagen, where he established a connection with the composer Niels W. Gade. He had spent some time in Leipzig, where he was well received by Mendelssohn and by Clara and Robert Schumann. In his reminiscences, published in 1900, Reinecke recalled the mercurial and gifted Mendelssohn as quick and incisive in his criticism, while Robert Schumann was less communicative but generally encouraging. Schumann, indeed, found in Reinecke someone musically after his own heart. In 1848, after the death of Mendelssohn, Reinecke was once more in Leipzig, and the following year spent some days in Weimar. Liszt, writing to his friend and former pupil Franz Kroll, described him in the most complimentary terms, both as a composer and as 'un charmant gar?ºon', entrusting him with dealings over a grand piano made available to Liszt by the publisher Hermann Hartel, and helping him with introductions in Paris, when Reinecke went there in 1851. It was in Paris, during a stay of some months, that Reinecke gave lessons to one of Liszt's daughters. From 1851, Reinecke taught at the Cologne Conservatory, and worked at Barmen for five years as a conductor and administrator, on the recommendation of Ferdinand Hiller. After a period in Breslau as director of music at the university, he returned in 1860 to Leipzig as conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and professor at the Conservatory founded by Mendelssohn. In 1869 he conducted the first complete performance of Brahms's German Requiem, including the new seventh movement, and was the pianist in the first performance of the same composer's Cello Sonata, Op. 38, in Leipzig in 1871. After the death of Brahms in 1897, he wrote a Cello Sonata of his own, Op. 238, in memory of Brahms. In general he had little sympathy with the New German School, the Music of the Future of Wagner and Liszt, happy to remain among the followers and successors of Schumann. Reinecke's concert activities continued over the following years, with tours to England and to Scandinavia, and concerts in Russia, both as a pianist and as a conductor. He was succeeded in 1895 at the Gewandhaus and in 1902 retired from his position as director of the Leipzig Conservatory, which he had assumed in 1897. He continued his activity as a composer until his death in 191