Charles Martin Loeffler
Encyclopedia
Charles Martin Loeffler (January 30, 1861 – May 19, 1935) was a German-born American violinist and composer.
, Alsace
and almost all music encyclopedias give this fabricated information. In his lifetime articles were published dissecting his "typically Alsatian" temperament. In fact, as his biographer Ellen Knight has established, he was German—indeed a Prussian, and a Berliner on both sides of his family, born Martin Karl Löffler in Schöneberg
near Berlin. He turned against Germany when the Prussian authorities imprisoned his father, an agricultural chemist and author of Republican ideals. (Loeffler senior wrote journalism under the name 'Tornov' or 'Tornow', and his son sometimes used this as one of his middle names.) Loeffler was only about 12 when his father was imprisoned; he spent the rest of his life in prison, dying of a stroke before he was due to be released. Before his father's arrest the family had moved around a good deal, including a period in Alsace, and then to Smiela near Kiev
, while Loeffler was still a small child. Later they lived in Hungary
and Switzerland
.
, Friedrich Kiel
and Woldemar Bargiel
, then with Joseph Massart
(and composition with Ernest Guiraud
) in Paris. He played with the Pasdeloup Orchestra and in 1881 emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra
and shared the first desk with the concertmaster from 1882 to 1903.
He first appeared as a violinist-composer with the orchestra in 1891 with the performance of his suite Les Vieilles d'Ukraine, and his works were performed regularly by the Boston Symphony (and by other American orchestra) for the rest of his life.
Loeffler became a U.S. citizen in 1887 and eventually resigned from the orchestra to devote himself to composition. He was a friend of Eugène Ysaÿe
and John Singer Sargent
(who painted his portrait), also of Gabriel Fauré
and Ferruccio Busoni
(both of whom dedicated works to him), and later of George Gershwin
. A man of wide culture and refined taste, he developed an idiom deeply influenced by contemporary French and Russian music, in the traditions of César Franck
, Ernest Chausson
and Claude Debussy
, and also by Symbolist and "decadent" literature. Loeffler often cultivated unusual combinations of instruments, and was one of the earliest modern enthusiasts for the viola d'amore
, which he discovered in 1894 and wrote parts for in several scores as well as arranging much music for it. In his later years he also, unexpectedly, became deeply interested in jazz
, and wrote some works for jazz band.
His notable students include Arthur Hartmann, Kay Swift
and Francis Judd Cooke
, who studied with him for two years in Medfield, Massachusetts
. Loeffler died in Medfield the age of 74.
), La Bonne Chanson (after Verlaine
), A Pagan Poem
(after Virgil
), and Memories of My Childhood (Life in a Russian Village), as well as the song-cycle Five Irish Fantasies (to words by W. B. Yeats
and Heffernan
), and the chamber works Music for Four String Instruments and Two Rhapsodies for oboe, viola and piano.
His Divertissement for violin and orchestra was premiered in Berlin in 1905 by Karel Halíř
, under the baton of Richard Strauss
, at the same concert at which Halíř premiered the revised version of Sibelius
's Violin Concerto
. Fritz Kreisler
and Eugène Ysaÿe
had declined to play the Divertissement because of its technical demands.
Birthplace
Throughout his career Loeffler claimed to have been born in MulhouseMulhouse
Mulhouse |mill]] hamlet) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514 and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin département, and the second largest in the Alsace region after...
, Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
and almost all music encyclopedias give this fabricated information. In his lifetime articles were published dissecting his "typically Alsatian" temperament. In fact, as his biographer Ellen Knight has established, he was German—indeed a Prussian, and a Berliner on both sides of his family, born Martin Karl Löffler in Schöneberg
Schöneberg
Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg....
near Berlin. He turned against Germany when the Prussian authorities imprisoned his father, an agricultural chemist and author of Republican ideals. (Loeffler senior wrote journalism under the name 'Tornov' or 'Tornow', and his son sometimes used this as one of his middle names.) Loeffler was only about 12 when his father was imprisoned; he spent the rest of his life in prison, dying of a stroke before he was due to be released. Before his father's arrest the family had moved around a good deal, including a period in Alsace, and then to Smiela near Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, while Loeffler was still a small child. Later they lived in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
Career
Loeffler decided to become a violinist and studied in Berlin with Joseph JoachimJoseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
, Friedrich Kiel
Friedrich Kiel
Friedrich Kiel was a German composer and music teacher.Writing of the chamber music of Friedrich Kiel, the famous scholar and critic Wilhelm Altmann notes that it was Kiel’s extreme modesty which kept him and his exceptional works from receiving the consideration they deserved...
and Woldemar Bargiel
Woldemar Bargiel
Woldemar Bargiel was a German composer of classical music.-Life:Bargiel was born in Berlin, and was the half brother of Clara Schumann. Bargiel’s father Adolph was a well-known piano and voice teacher while his mother Mariane had been unhappily married to Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck. Clara was...
, then with Joseph Massart
Joseph Massart
Joseph Lambert Massart was a Belgian violinist.He was born in Liège, Belgium. Despite being sponsored by the king, he was not accepted at the Paris Conservatoire because of his foreign status. He became a private pupil of Rodolphe Kreutzer...
(and composition with Ernest Guiraud
Ernest Guiraud
Ernest Guiraud was a French composer and music teacher born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known for writing the traditional orchestral recitatives used for Bizet's opera Carmen and for Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann .- Biography :Guiraud began his schooling in Louisiana under the...
) in Paris. He played with the Pasdeloup Orchestra and in 1881 emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
and shared the first desk with the concertmaster from 1882 to 1903.
He first appeared as a violinist-composer with the orchestra in 1891 with the performance of his suite Les Vieilles d'Ukraine, and his works were performed regularly by the Boston Symphony (and by other American orchestra) for the rest of his life.
Loeffler became a U.S. citizen in 1887 and eventually resigned from the orchestra to devote himself to composition. He was a friend of Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...
and John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
(who painted his portrait), also of Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
and Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...
(both of whom dedicated works to him), and later of George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
. A man of wide culture and refined taste, he developed an idiom deeply influenced by contemporary French and Russian music, in the traditions of César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
, Ernest Chausson
Ernest Chausson
Amédée-Ernest Chausson was a French romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish.-Life:Ernest Chausson was born in Paris into a prosperous bourgeois family...
and Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, and also by Symbolist and "decadent" literature. Loeffler often cultivated unusual combinations of instruments, and was one of the earliest modern enthusiasts for the viola d'amore
Viola d'amore
The viola d'amore is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin.- Structure and sound :...
, which he discovered in 1894 and wrote parts for in several scores as well as arranging much music for it. In his later years he also, unexpectedly, became deeply interested in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, and wrote some works for jazz band.
His notable students include Arthur Hartmann, Kay Swift
Kay Swift
Kay Swift was an American composer of popular and classical music, the first woman to score a complete musical. Written in 1930, Fine and Dandy includes some of her best known songs; the title song has become a jazz standard. "Can't We Be Friends?" was another important hit...
and Francis Judd Cooke
Francis Judd Cooke
Francis Judd Cooke was an American composer, organist, cellist, pianist, conductor, choir director, and professor.-Life:...
, who studied with him for two years in Medfield, Massachusetts
Medfield, Massachusetts
Medfield is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,024 according to the 2010 Census. Medfield is an affluent community about 17 miles southwest of Boston....
. Loeffler died in Medfield the age of 74.
Works
Loeffler was a fastidious composer who composed carefully, frequently revising his compositions. Some of his works are lost. His best-known works include the symphonic poems La Mort de Tintagiles (after MaeterlinckMaurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
), La Bonne Chanson (after Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
), A Pagan Poem
A Pagan Poem
A Pagan Poem is a tone poem for orchestra composed in 1906 by Charles Martin Loeffler. Originally scored for piano, woodwinds, violin, and contrabass, the work was soon rescored for two pianos and three trumpets...
(after Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
), and Memories of My Childhood (Life in a Russian Village), as well as the song-cycle Five Irish Fantasies (to words by W. B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
and Heffernan
Heffernan
The name Heffernan is derived from the Irish Gaelic name O Heifearnain, which comes from the given name Ifearnan meaning "demon". Heffernan gives rise to alternatives such as Heffernon and Hefferan.People with the surname Heffernan include:...
), and the chamber works Music for Four String Instruments and Two Rhapsodies for oboe, viola and piano.
His Divertissement for violin and orchestra was premiered in Berlin in 1905 by Karel Halíř
Karel Halír
Karel Halíř was a Czech violinist who lived mainly in Germany...
, under the baton of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, at the same concert at which Halíř premiered the revised version of Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
's Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto (Sibelius)
The Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47, was written by Jean Sibelius in 1904.-History:Sibelius originally dedicated the concerto to the noted violinist Willy Burmester, who promised to play the concerto in Berlin...
. Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
and Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...
had declined to play the Divertissement because of its technical demands.
Sources
- Ellen Knight, Charles Martin Loeffler (University of Illinois Press, 1993)
- Sadie, S. (ed.) (1980) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, [vol. # 11].