Rudorff, Ernst

Preface

Rudorff, Ernst – Symphony No. 1 in B flat major op. 31

(b. Berlin, 18. Januar 1840 – d. Lichterfelde, 31. Dezember 1916)

(1879)

I Allegro vivace (S. 3)
II Adagio (S. 107)
III Presto (S. 148) – Trio: l’istesso tempo (S. 170) – a tempo (S. 193)
IV Finale: [Thema] Allegretto moderato (S. 210) – [Variation 1] (S. 216) –
[Variation 2] Quasi l’istesso tempo, un poco più tranquillo (S. 222) –
[Variation 3] Più animato (Allegretto vivace) (S. 232) – [Variation 4] Quasi l’istesso tempo (S. 240) – [Variation 5] Quasi l’istesso tempo (un poco largamente) (S. 250) –
[Variation 6] Allegro molto agitato (S. 258) –
[Variation 7] Allegro maestoso (S. 267) – [Coda] Presto (S. 275)

Preface
Ernst Rudorff was one of the most influential musicians in Berlin during the last third of the 19th century. Son of the jurist Adolf Rudorff and Elisabeth “Betty” Pistor, he grew up in a family that maintained extraordinarily varied connections to well-known people in cultural and scientific life. His grandfather Carl Pistor, for example, was highly regarded throughout Europe as a designer of optical devices, while the famous poet Ludwig Tieck, whose works left a lasting impression on Rudorff, was a great uncle by marriage. The parents provided a comprehensive musical education for their son. Ernst Rudorff received his first piano lessons from his mother, a childhood friend of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy siblings, who as a member of the Berlin Singakademie had enjoyed Carl Friedrich Zelter’s lessons, and from his godmother Marie Lichtenstein, who in turn was godchild of Carl Maria von Weber. In addition, Louis Ries provided basic training in violin playing. Woldemar Bargiel was his piano teacher from 1850 to 1857. In 1858, Bargiel’s half-sister Clara Schumann, who was to appreciate the pianist Rudorff throughout her life, also gave him five double lessons on the piano. From 1859 to 1861 Rudorff studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Ignaz Moscheles, Moritz Hauptmann, Julius Rietz, Ferdinand David, Felix Dreyschock, Carl Reinecke and Louis Plaidy, and continued to take private lessons in composition with Hauptmann and piano with Reinecke until 1862. In 1864 he became assistant conductor under Julius Stockhausen in Hamburg and made his conducting debut with the third part of Robert Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust. In 1865 he moved to Cologne, where he taught piano and choral conducting at the local conservatory and founded a Bach Society in 1868. In 1869, his friend Joseph Joachim, to whom Rudorff was “very appealing as a person and in his musical …

read more / weiterlesen … > HERE