Fiedler, Max

Fiedler, Max – Lustspiel-Ouvertüre op.11 for orchestra

(b. Zittau, 31 December 1859 – d. Stockholm, 1 December 1939)

1914

Preface
August Max Fiedler was one of the greatest and most celebrated conductors of his generation. He grew up in his native Zittau, where he received his first music lessons from his father Karl Friedrich August Fiedler, a clarinetist, violinist, and pianist from Germany’s Wendish minority. On 23 February 1870, Max gave his first public performance at the age of eleven, playing the solo part in Mozart’s A-major Piano Concerto (K. 488). Before enrolling at Leipzig Conservatory, he played Chopin’s F-minor Concerto in Zittau under his father’s baton on 21 February 1877. The same concert witnessed the première of his orchestral character-piece Abschied. Until 1880 he was a student in Leipzig, where he was instructed in piano by Carl Reinecke (1824-1910), who influenced him particularly in the Schumann tradition, and in composition by the learned contrapuntist Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902). His musical way of thinking was heavily influenced by Moritz Hauptmann (1792-1868). Having passed his examinations, he played Reinecke’s C-major Piano Concerto in his final concert.

In 1882, Fiedler, at Reinecke’s recommendation, was made a piano teacher at the Von Bernuth Conservatory in Hamburg. There he came into close contact with Brahms’s friend Julius Spengel (1853-1936), who conducted Hamburg’s St. Cecilia Society from 1872 to 1927. In this way he became acquainted with Brahms, who even asked him to deputize for him in the solo part of his Second Piano Concerto. Fiedler frequently heard Brahms play his own music, and later remarked of his rubato that “it cannot be put down in writing.” He also befriended Hans von Bülow, and in later years was celebrated throughout the world as the “authentic interpreter of Brahms.” …

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