Reinecke, Carl

Preface

Carl Reinecke

Alladin, Op. 70
Concert Overture

(b. Altona nr. Hamburg, 23 June 1824 – d. Leipzig, 10 March 1910)

Preface
Carl Reinecke was born in Altona, in northern Germany, in 1824, and he began his career as court pianist in Copenhagen in 1846. In 1851 he moved to Cologne where he taught at the Conservatoire and became friendly with Ferdinand Hiller and the Schumanns. In 1859 he spent a year in Breslau and then moved again to Leipzig where he taught at the Conservatoire for the rest of his life. From 1897 until 1902 he was its Director, and he died in 1910.

As a prominent Leipzig musician he came in contact with all the leading musicians in Europe. His output was vast, including seven operas, three symphonies, four piano concertos, and concertos for violin, cello, harp, and flute; the last of these enjoys considerable popularity to this day. He also composed a great deal of chamber music and a quantity of choral music. His sympathies were with the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann, and he admired Brahms. He shared the reactionary tastes of most Leipzig musicians, who considered Liszt and Wagner to be leading music in the wrong direction.

There are a number of orchestral overtures and three symphonic poems: Dame Kobold and Alladin were both composed in Cologne in the period 1857-1860; Dame Kobold was based on a drama by Calderon, preceding operas on the same subject by Ernest Guiraud and Joachim Raff, both first played in 1870. Weingartner’s opera Kobold was performed in 1915. Reinecke’s tone poem Zenobia, on the third-century Syrian queen, appeared in 1887.

The Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Arabian and Persian tales that became known in Europe in the early eighteenth century through the French translation by Antoine Galland. Their popularity increased enormously in the nineteenth century, inspiring many compositions in all forms. The tale of Aladdin (or Alladin, in Reinecke’s spelling) is not found in the original sources, but was introduced by Galland and it became one …

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