Gustav Merkel
Encyclopedia
Oderwitz
Oderwitz is a Saxon municipality in the district Görlitz in Upper Lusatia, Germany. It is located in the southeast of the Free State of Saxony near the border with the Czech Republic...
, near Zittau
Zittau
Zittau is a city in the south east of the Free State of Saxony, Germany, close to the border tripoint of Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. , there are 28,638 people in the city. It is part of the Görlitz district....
, November 12, 1827 – Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, October 30, 1885) was a German organist and composer.
Having been given some lessons by 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....
in his youth , Merkel spent most of his career in Dresden, concentrating on organ-playing from 1858. A Lutheran himself, he nevertheless held an appointment at one of Dresden's main Catholic churches from 1864 until his death. During the same period he taught the organ at Dresden's Conservatorium.
His compositions include nine solo sonatas (which have been recorded several times, as well as occurring quite often in organ recitals), plus a separate sonata for two organists (his Opus 30), and several dozen miniatures (some of them based on Protestant chorale
Chorale
A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
melodies). In these works his style is broadly conservative, very much influenced by Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
, and with similarities to the output of his younger contemporary Josef Rheinberger
Josef Rheinberger
Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was a German organist and composer, born in Liechtenstein.-Short biography:...
. He also produced choral and piano pieces.