Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/588

 cantatas, Biblische Bilder, and highly successful songs. Under him Wagner's Tristan was produced in 1874 for the first time away from Munich.

Leopold Damrosch (d. 1885), born at Posen in 1832, first studied medicine at Berlin, winning his degree at 22, but also pursued music to such purpose that he soon became a violin-virtuoso and in 1855 was engaged at Weimar as soloist in the court-orchestra. There he married the soprano Helene von Heimburg. From 1859 he worked at Breslau, first as conductor of the Philharmonic concerts, later, after tours with Bülow and Tausig, as founder of an orchestral society, chamber concerts and a choral society, besides being for a time conductor at the theatre. Called to New York in 1871 as conductor of the Arion, he there started the Oratorio Society in 1873 and the Symphony Society in 1878, organized a large festival in 1881 and conducted German opera in 1884-5. He was a versatile and finished composer—a symphony, 3 violin-concertos, 7 cantatas, many songs, etc. But he was most noted as an organizer and as a zealous apostle of modern styles.

Alexander Ritter (d. 1896) was a German, though born in Russia in 1833. As a boy he was Bülow's comrade at Dresden, where he studied with the violinist Schubert. After two years at the Leipsic conservatory, he married a niece of Wagner and in 1854 joined the Weimar group. From 1856 he lived mostly at Stettin or Dresden, and in 1863 settled at Würzburg, where in 1875 he established a music-store. From 1882 he was in Bülow's orchestra at Meiningen, and from 1886 lived at Munich. Though not specially forceful, he was favorably known for his symphonic poems, 2 comic operas (1885-90) and good songs.

Felix Draeseke, born at Coburg in 1835 and first trained at Leipsic, though younger than the foregoing, was prominent with them at Weimar, from 1857 being an energetic champion in print of the new ideas. From 1864 he taught at the Lausanne conservatory, with one year (1868-9) at Munich, and in 1876 moved to Dresden, where since 1884 he has been a leading professor in the conservatory. His compositions, in modern vein, include 3 symphonies, 3 overtures, concertos for piano and for violin, much chamber music, several cantatas, striking church music, an oratorio, 4 operas (from 1867), etc., besides theoretical works (from 1879).

Among literary workers more or less connected with the Weimar group were the court-official Franz Müller (d. 1876), an early supporter of Wagner in many essays (1853-69); the abundant historical writer Reissmann (d. 1903), whose talent for authorship was awakened here in 1850-2; and the influential editors of the Neue Zeitschrift, Franz Brendel (d. 1868) and Richard Pohl (d. 1896).

Among the greater pianists who went forth from Liszt imbued with modern enthusiasms were Rudolf Viole of Berlin (d. 1867), Bülow (d. 1894), Klindworth of London, Moscow and Berlin, Pflughaupt of Aix (d. 1871), Julius Reubke (d. 1858), Pruckner of Stuttgart (d. 1896), Winterberger of Vienna, St. Petersburg and Leipsic, Theodor Ratzenberger of Düsseldorf (d. 1879), the brilliant Karl Tausig (d. 1871), and many others later.

Here may well be added some details about the personnel of the Weimar kapelle. The court-choirmasters during the century included