Friedrich Gernsheim was a German

Germany

Germany , 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...

 composer, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 and pianist.

Gernsheim was born in Worms

Worms, Germany

Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River. At the end of 2004, it had 85,829 inhabitants.Established by the Celts, who called it Borbetomagus, Worms today remains embattled with the cities Trier and Cologne over the title of "Oldest City in Germany." Worms is the only...

. He was given his first musical training at home under his mother's care, then starting from the age of seven under Worms' musical director, Louis Liebe

Louis Liebe

Louis Liebe was a German conductor and composer who was a pupil of Louis Spohr. He became musical director at Worms. One of his pupils was Friedrich Gernsheim....

, a former pupil of Louis Spohr

Louis Spohr

Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...

. His father, a prominent Jewish physician, moved the family to Frankfurt am Main in the aftermath of the year of revolutions, 1848

Revolutions of 1848

The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...

, where he studied with Edward Rosenhain, brother of Jakob Rosenhain

Jakob Rosenhain

Jakob Rosenhain was a Jewish and German pianist and composer of classical music.Rosenhain made his debut at the age of 11...

. He made his first public appearance as a concert pianist in 1850 and toured for two seasons, then settled with his family in Leipzig, where he studied piano with Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he succeeded his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as head of the Conservatoire.-Sources:Much of what we know about Moscheles's life...

 from 1852. He spent the years 1855–1860 in Paris, meeting Gioacchino Rossini

Gioacchino Rossini

Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...

, Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo

Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...

 and Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

.

His travels afterwards took him to Saarbrücken

Saarbrücken

Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....

, where in 1861 he took the conductor post vacated by Hermann Levi

Hermann Levi

Hermann Levi was a German Jewish orchestral conductor.Levi was born in Gießen, Germany, the son of a rabbi. He was educated at Gießen and Mannheim, and came to Vinzenz Lachner's notice...

; to Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, where in 1865 Ferdinand Hiller

Ferdinand Hiller

Ferdinand Hiller was a German composer, conductor, writer and music-director.-Biography:Ferdinand Hiller was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, where his father Justus was a merchant in English textiles – a business eventually continued by Ferdinand’s brother Joseph...

 appointed him to the staff of the Conservatory (one of his pupils was Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...

); he then served as musical director of the Philharmonic Society of Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

, 1874-1890. In the latter year he became a teacher at the Stern Conservatory

Stern conservatory

The Stern Conservatory was a private music school in Berlin with many notable tutors and alumni.-History:It was originally founded in 1850 as the Berliner Musikschule by Julius Stern, Theodor Kullak and Adolf Bernhard Marx. Kullak withdrew from the conservatory in 1855 in order to create a new...

 in Berlin, and in 1897 moved there to teach at the Academy of Arts, where he was elected to the senate in 1897.

Gernsheim was a prolific composer, especially of orchestral, chamber and instrumental music, and songs. Some of his works tend to Jewish subject-matter, notably the Third Symphony on the legend of the Song of Miriam. His earlier works show the influence of Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, and from 1868, when he first became friendly with Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

, a Brahmsian influence is very palpable. Gernsheim's four symphonies (the first of which was written before the publication of Brahms' First Symphony

Symphony No. 1 (Brahms)

The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876...

) are an interesting example of the reception of Brahmsian style by a sympathetic and talented contemporary. Gernsheim's last works, most notably his Zu einem Drama (1902), show him moving away from that into something more personal. He died in Berlin.

Selected works (excerpted from worklist)

• Orchestral works
  • Symphonies
    • Symphony no. 1 in G minor, op. 32, 1875
    • Symphony no. 2 in E major, op. 46, 1882
    • Symphony no. 3 in C minor ('Miriam' or 'Mirjam'), op. 54, 1887
    • Symphony no. 4 in B major, op. 62, 1895
  • Piano Concertos
    • Piano Concerto in C minor, op. 16
  • Violin Concertos
    • Violin Concerto no. 1 in D major, op. 42
    • Violin Concerto no. 2 in F, op. 86
    • Fantasy Piece for violin with orchestra, op. 33
  • Cello Concertos
    • Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 78 (fairly popular in the early 20th century with many mentions in the Neue Zeitschrift as evidence, and played on SWR2 radio on January 31, 2005 by cellist Alexander Hülshoff, the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, directed by Ari Rasilainen. Recorded and released by the British label Hyperion in its 'Romantic Cello Concerto' series, played by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, conducted by Hannu Lintu, with Alban Gerhardt as soloist).)
  • Zu einem drama, op. 82 (given a radio recording by Klaus Arp and the SWR Radio Orch.)
  • Divertimento, op. 53
• Chamber music
  • String Quartets
    • String Quartet no. 1 in C minor, op. 25
    • String Quartet no. 2 in A minor, op. 31, 1875 (recorded on Audite)
    • String Quartet no. 3 in F major, op. 51, 1886
    • String Quartet no. 4 in E minor, op. 66
    • String Quartet no. 5 in A major, op. 83 (Republished recently by Walter Wollenweber-Verlag, pub. originally ca 1911.)
  • Piano Quartets
    • Piano Quartet no. 1 in E, op. 6
    • Piano Quartet no. 2 in C minor, op. 20 (performed in 2003. Pub. ca. 1870.)
    • Piano Quartet no. 3 in F major, op. 47, 1883
  • Piano Quintets
    • Piano Quintet no. 1 in D minor, op. 35
    • Piano Quintet no. 2 in B minor, op. 63, pub. ca. 1897 (definitely by 1898 - see review )
  • String Quintets
    • String Quintet no. 1 in D major, op. 9
    • String Quintet no. 2 in E major, op. 89 (premiered in Feb. 1916 and mentioned in the Neue Zeitschrift that year. Two-cello quintet. Given its modern premiere in 2003 along with his string trio op. 74.)
  • Violin sonatas
    • Violin sonata no. 1 in C minor, op. 4, pub. ca. 1864
    • Violin sonata no. 2 in C, op. 50, pub. ca. 1885
    • Violin sonata no. 3 in F, op. 64, pub. ca. 1898
    • Violin sonata no. 4 in G, op. 85
  • Piano trios
    • Piano trio no. 1 in F, op. 28
    • Piano trio no. 2 in B, op. 37
    • Two other piano trios, in manuscript (search at the Altenberg Trio site. #2 in B is in their repertoire.)
  • Cello sonatas
    • Cello sonata no. 1 in D minor, op. 12
    • Cello sonata no. 2 in E minor, op. 87
  • Piano sonata
    • Piano sonata in F minor, op. 1
  • Organ
    • Fantasy and Fugue for Organ, op. 76
  • Other chamber music
    • Introduction and Allegro appassionato, op. 38
• Choral works and orchestral works
  • Salamis, for men's chorus and orchestra op. 10
  • Nibelungen wiederfahrt, op. 73
  • Nornen wiegenlied, op. 65
  • Agrippina, op. 77

Of these works, the symphonies, the cello concerto, the first cello sonata, the piano trios, two of the piano quartets, the two piano quintets, and the second string quartet have to date been recorded.

External links

• Friedrich Gernsheim’s String Quartet No. 2 , Piano Trio No.2 & Piano Quintet No.1 sound-bites with discussion of works
• Detailed biography and worklist on the page of an association for Jewish culture in his hometown (in German, cf. #2 there)
• Biography

Literature

• Koch, Dr. Hans-Oskar. Notes to the recording on Arte-Nova of the Complete Symphonies of Friedrich Gernsheim.
• Ringer, Alexander. Friedrich Gernsheim (1839-1916) and the Lost Generation, Music Judaica, 3.1, 5741/1980-1. pp. 1–13.
• Green, Janet M. and Josephine Thrall. The American History and Encyclopedia of Music 908, s.v. "Friedrich Gernsheim".