Pfohl, Ferdinand

Preface

Ferdinand Pfohl – Twardowsky. Rhapsody for large orchestra and male choir with mezzo-soprano solo

(b. Elbogen, Bohemia, October 12, 1862 – d. Hamburg-Bergedorf, December 16, 1949)

Pfohl was primarily known as a music writer and long-time music critic for the Hamburg Nachrichten. Nevertheless, he emerged as a composer in his early years, and felt throughout his life that he alone had the right to judge music.

Pfohl was born in 1862 in the Bohemian town of Elbogen an der Eger (now Loket) and enjoyed a humanistic education at the Benedictine grammar school in Braunau in northern Bohemia. An awakening experience during the premiere of Parsifal in Bayreuth in 1883 led Pfohl to abandon his law studies in Prague and move to the music city of Leipzig, initially to enrol at the Faculty of Philosophy. With the help of Liszt student Arthur Friedheim, he was able to perform his now lost symphonic poem Die Apsarase with the orchestra of the Weimar Court Opera in 1887 with “resounding success”, whereupon Professor Oscar Paul accepted him free of charge as a theory student. As Pfohl had to make a living on his own in Leipzig, he began writing as a critic for the Leipziger Tageblatt. Writing thus became his day job, while he continued to compose on a modest scale.

1892 was a turning point in Pfohl’s life. On August 31, the respected music critic Dr. Paul Mirsch died of cholera in Hamburg. His position as editor of the arts section of the Hamburger Nachrichten was then brought to Pfohl’s attention through a recommendation from the great conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow. Pfohl then had to report on all musical activities at the municipal theater in Hamburg, provide critiques of premieres at foreign theaters and write reviews of books that had been sent in. Over the years, he wrote an estimated 10,000 major reviews and essays, covering 100 operas and 80 living composers, which Pfohl accompanied as a journalist. From 1889 onwards, Pfohl was also in charge of the “Hausmusik” supplement of the family weekly Daheim in Leipzig, in which he published hundreds of biographical sketches of aspiring musicians. Pfohl also wrote notable music books, of which his biographies of Richard Wagner and Arthur Nikisch were the most widely distributed. …

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