Loeffler, Charles Martin

Loeffler, Charles Martin – Memories of my Childhood (Life in a Russian Village) for orchestra

(b. Berlin-Schöneberg, 30 January 1861 – d. Medfield, USA, 19 May 1935)

(Life in a Russian Village)

God have mercy on us p.10
Happiest of Days p.12
Fairy-tale p.14
Dance Song p.19
Death of Vasinka p.39

Preface
Charles Martin Loeffler is among those composers around 1900 whose work resists clear national or stylistic classification.. Born near Berlin in 1861, he spent formative years of his childhood in Ukraine and Hungary, studied in Berlin and Paris, and finally found his artistic home in the United States. This biographical complexity is reflected in a musical language that combines French sophistication, Russian melancholy and late Romantic expressive intensity.

After emigrating to the USA in 1881, Loeffler became a central figure in American musical life. As long-time assistant concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his works were regularly performed and highly regarded by his contemporaries. At the same time, he occupied a special position: neither firmly anchored in the German tradition nor part of an emerging ‘American’ style. His affinity for French symbolism and a deliberately cultivated sound poetry later made him appear conservative – a judgement that hardly does justice to his music. …
 

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