Friedrich Daniel Rudolf Kuhlau (11 September 1786 – 12 March 1832) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
-
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
composerA composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
during the
ClassicalThe dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or...
and
RomanticRomantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
periods. He was a central figure of the Danish Golden Age.
He is immortalized in Danish cultural history through his music for Elverhøj, the first true work of Danish National Romanticism and a concealed tribute to the
absolute monarchyThe term Absolutism may refer to:* Absolute idealism, an ontologically monistic philosophy attributed to G.W.F. Hegel. It is Hegel's account of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole...
. To this day it is Kuhlau's version of this melody which is the definitive arrangement.
During his lifetime, he was known primarily as a concert pianist and composer of Danish
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, but was responsible for introducing many of
BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's works, which he greatly admired, to Copenhagen audiences. Considering that his house burned down destroying all of his unpublished manuscripts, he was a prolific composer leaving more than 200 published works in most
genreGenre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s.
Early life and education
Kuhlau was born on 11 September 1786 just south of
LüneburgLüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...
in
UelzenUelzen is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Gifhorn, Celle, Heidekreis, Lüneburg and Lüchow-Dannenberg, and by the state of Saxony-Anhalt...
district of
Lower SaxonyLower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
. At the age of seven, he lost his right eye when he slipped on ice and fell. His father, grandfather, and uncle were military
oboistsThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
. Even though Kuhlau was born to a poor family, his parents managed to pay for piano lessons. Later he studied the
pianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
in
Hamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
where he also had his debut as a pianist in 1804.
In 1810, he fled to
CopenhagenCopenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
to avoid conscription in the
Napoleonic ArmyThe Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, which overwhelmed the many small principalities and
duchiesA duchy is a territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess.Some duchies were sovereign in areas that would become unified realms only during the Modern era . In contrast, others were subordinate districts of those kingdoms that unified either partially or completely during the Medieval era...
of northern Germany, and in 1813 he became a
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
citizen.
Operatic works
Kuhlau had his breakthrough in 1814 at the
Royal Danish TheatreThe Royal Danish Theatre is both the national Danish performing arts institution and a name used to refer to its old purpose-built venue from 1874 located on Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. The theatre was founded in 1748, first serving as the theatre of the king, and then as the theatre of the...
with
Røverborgen ("The Robbers’ Castle"), a
singspielA Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...
with a liberetto by
Adam OehlenschlägerAdam Gottlob Oehlenschläger was a Danish poet and playwright. He introduced romanticism into Danish literature.-Biography:He was born in Vesterbro, then a suburb of Copenhagen, on 14 November 1779...
.
His next few dramatic works, including
Trylleharpen (1817),
Elisa (1820) and
Hugo og Adelheid (1827), lacking drama, failed miserably. With
Lulu from 1824 he finally once again experienced success with one of his singspiels. He also wrote music for performances of
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's plays.
In 1828 he achieved his greatest success when he wrote the music for
Elverhøj. It won immediate popularity, especially for its
overtureOverture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
and the final royal anthem, Kong Christian stod ved høien Mast (King Christian Stood by the Towering Mast). In the music, Kuhlau made very effective use of Danish and Swedish folk tunes.
Classical works
Alongside his dramatic works, Kuhlau wrote several compositions for flute and a large number of works for piano. Particularly his short pieces,
sonatinaA sonatina is literally a small sonata. As a musical term, sonatina has no single strict definition; it is rather a title applied by the composer to a piece that is in basic sonata form, but is shorter, lighter in character, or more elementary technically than a typical sonata...
s, for piano, enjoyed great popularity both in Denmark and abroad.
Beethoven, whom Kuhlau knew personally, exerted the greatest influence upon his music. Interestingly, few of Beethoven’s contemporaries showed greater understanding or ability to assimilate what he was doing than Kuhlau. Certainly with regard to form, Kuhlau was clearly able to make sense and use what Beethoven was doing in his Middle Period.
Kuhlau's C major Piano Concerto, Op. 7 from 1810 displays a strong influence from Beethoven's
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C majorLudwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, op. 15, was written during 1796 and 1797. The first performance was in Prague in 1798, with Beethoven himself playing the piano, dedicated to his student Babette Countess Keglevics....
, written 14 years earlier. The rhythmic motif and ascending scale passage from the opening two measures of Kuhlau's mimics nearly identically the opening of Beethoven's. Kuhlau's 3rd movement Rondo also has similar passages in homage to the earlier work.
In addition to the above mentioned
piano concertoA piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...
were a
string quartetA string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
and several works for piano that included all the current genres of the day:
sonataSonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
s,
sonatinaA sonatina is literally a small sonata. As a musical term, sonatina has no single strict definition; it is rather a title applied by the composer to a piece that is in basic sonata form, but is shorter, lighter in character, or more elementary technically than a typical sonata...
s,
waltzThe waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es,
rondoRondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...
s and
variationsIn music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
. He also created several works for the strings with piano (three
quartetsIn European classical music, piano quartet denotes a chamber music composition for piano and three other instruments, or a musical ensemble comprising such instruments...
and two
quintetsIn European classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly piano, two violins, viola, and cello . Among the most frequently performed piano quintets are those by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák...
, and several
violin sonataA violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, which is nearly always accompanied by a piano or other keyboard instrument, or by figured bass in the Baroque period.-A:*Ella Adayevskaya**Sonata Greca for Violin or Clarinet and Piano...
s), works of
incidental musicIncidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
and several
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s. However, his most-often recorded and played works are several piano sonatinas and numerous works for
fluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
. It is because of these flute works that he was nicknamed "the Beethoven of the flute" during his lifetime.
External links
- List of works International Friedrich Kuhlau Society hosted on Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Friedrich Kuhlau Grand String Quartet Op.122 Soundbites and short biography