Alfred Dörffel (24 January 1821 – 22 January 1905) was a German pianist, music publisher and librarian.
Career
Dörffel was born in
Waldenburg, Saxony
Waldenburg is a town in the district Zwickau in Saxony, Germany. The castle was owned by the House of Schönburg from 1378 until 1945. The pottery town of Waldenburg lies in the valley of the Zwickauer Mulde. The environment is characterized by f ...
, the son of August Friedrich Dörffel and his wife Christiane Charlotte, née Kröhne. He received his first musical training by the Waldenburg organist Johann Adolf Trube. He later studied in Leipzig with
Gottfried Wilhelm Fink
Gottfried Wilhelm Fink (8 March 1783 – 27 August 1846) was a German composer, music theorist, poet, and a Protestant clergyman.
Life
From 1804 until 1808 Fink studied theology at the University of Leipzig where he joined the Corps Lusati ...
,
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...
and
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
.
Dörffel was editor for
Breitkopf & Härtel
Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf.
The catalogue currently contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on ...
and
Edition Peters
Edition Peters is a classical music publisher founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1800.
History
The company came into being on 1 December 1800 when the Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) and the local organist Ambrosius Kühnel ( ...
. He published a ' (Guide to the musical world), translated the ' (Instruction on scoring) by
Hector Berlioz
In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...
,
published in 1864.
He edited several volumes of the first complete edition of the Works of Johann Sebastian Bach by the ''
Bach-Gesellschaft
The German Bach-Gesellschaft (Bach Society) was a society formed in 1850 for the express purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach without editorial additions. The collected works are known as the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausga ...
'', known as the ', beginning with
cantatas
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.
The meaning of t ...
in 1876 and ending with the ''
'' (then attributed to Bach) in 1898.
He wrote reviews for the '
and the ''Musikalisches Wochenblatt'' (Musical weekly). In 1881, Dörffler wrote the review of 100 years
Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus is a concert hall in Leipzig, the home of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics.
History
The first Gewandhaus (''Altes Gewandhaus'')
The fi ...
for the centenary of the concert hall, ', including a statistic of the concerts during this period.
Dörffler founded a library for literature on music, which became part of the ', opened in 1894.
He also worked as curator for the music section of the ' (Leipzig municipal library).
The
Universität Leipzig
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest University, universities and the List of universities in Germany#Universities by years of existence, second-oldest university (by conse ...
awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1885.
Gustav Flügel
Carl Gustav Flügel (2 July 1812 – 15 August 1900) was a German composer.
Life and work Ancestors and childhood
Flügel was born on 2 July 1812 in Nienburg an der Saale as the son of the ducal ferryman Johann Karl Flügel (1770–1828) a ...
dedicated his ', Op. 38 (1856, Leipzig, Merseburger) to Dörffel.
Dörffler was a member of the
Masonic Lodge
A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered ...
' from 1842 and composed several works for their meetings, often on texts by . He was married to Charlotte Louise Benigna, née Trabert, they had several children. He died in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
.
References
External links
*
*
*
Bach Bibliographie / Dörffel, Alfredbw.edu
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorffel, Alfred
19th-century German pianists
German music publishers (people)
German Freemasons
German librarians
1821 births
1905 deaths