Thieriot, Ferdinand

Preface

Thieriot, Ferdinand – Serenade for String Orchestra Op. 44

(b. 7 April 1838, Hamburg; d. 4 August 1919, Hamburg)

(ca. 1885)

I. Tempo moderato p. 3
II. Poco adagio p.8
III. Intermezzo: Allegro molto vivace p. 16
IV. Finale: Andante p. 28

Preface
Cellist and composer Ferdinand Thieriot began and ended his life in Hamburg, with periods of study in Altona (with Eduard Marxsen (1866-1887)) and Munich (with Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901)), and employment stints in Leipzig, Glogau and then Graz, where he served for 25 years as artistic director of the Steiermark Choral Society. After 1895 he divided his time between homes in Leipzig and his native Hamburg, where he died in 1919.

Thieriot belongs to a swath of German composers whose individual voice was adumbrated by the outsized attention paid to the Brahms vs. Wagner controversy, and whose prolific output of mostly absolute music remains largely shrouded in obscurity today. Indeed, as with many composers who were sympathetic to the aims of absolute music espoused by Brahms, he is most easily contextualized in relation to his more famous fellow Hamburg native, with whom he was well acquainted. Research on Thieriot is scant, and even his level of association with Brahms has been unclear. Early sources claim he was a pupil of Brahms, whereas later sources describe them as friends, contemporaries and occasional chamber music collaborators. To be sure, chamber music was the genre where they both left rich legacies.

Thieriot’s music was extensively published during his lifetime, and his known opus numbers reach 98. The Winterthur-based publisher Amadeus Verlag has taken up the cause of posthumously issuing much of his heretofore unpublished music, including 10 of his 12 string quartets and his Suite for String Orchestra, his only other known work for massed strings besides the present Serenade. Thieriot’s multiple reported visits to Switzerland may have been enough of a warrant for the Swiss publisher to take such a keen interest in him, though their publishing program includes many non-Swiss composers. …

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