Johann Rudolf Louis (30 January 187015 November 1914) was a German music critic and conductor.

Biography

Louis was born in

Schwetzingen Schwetzingen (; pfl, Schwetzinge) is a German town in northwest Baden-Württemberg, around southwest of Heidelberg and southeast of Mannheim. Schwetzingen is one of the five biggest cities of the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis district and a medium-sized ...

in 1870. He studied in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

, where he was a pupil of Friedrich Klose, and continued his studies in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and then

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

under

Felix Mottl right Felix Josef von Mottl (between 29 July/29 August 1856 – 2 July 1911) was an Austrian conductor and composer. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant conductors of his day. He composed three operas, of which ''Agnes Bernauer'' (Weima ...

before becoming conductor of the theatre orchestras in

Landshut Landshut (; bar, Landshuad) is a town in Bavaria in the south-east of Germany. Situated on the banks of the River Isar, Landshut is the capital of Lower Bavaria, one of the seven administrative regions of the Free State of Bavaria. It is also t ...

and

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

. In 1897 he moved to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Here he taught harmony and composition. Among his pupils was Wilhelm Petersen. He was also the music critic for the newspaper ''

Münchner Neueste Nachrichten ''Münchner Neueste Nachrichten'' (Munich's Latest News) was a German daily newspaper published in Munich between 1848 and 1945. The paper was first published on 9 April 1848 as a cheap way to inform the masses. After its purchase by , the newsp ...

''. An advocate of the latest trends in music as exemplified by his friends

Ludwig Thuille Ludwig Wilhelm Andreas Maria Thuille (Bolzano, Bozen, 30 November 1861 – 5 February 1907) was an Austrian composer and teacher, numbered for a while among the leading operatic composers of the so-called Munich School of composers, whose most fam ...

and

Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...

, he published books on

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

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 ...

Anton Bruckner Josef Anton Bruckner (; 4 September 182411 October 1896) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-Germ ...

Hans Pfitzner Hans Erich Pfitzner (5 May 1869 – 22 May 1949) was a German composer, conductor and polemicist who was a self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera ''Palestrina'' (1917), loosely based on the life of the s ...

, Klose and contemporary German music. With Ludwig Thuille he wrote an influential manual on harmony, ''Harmonielehre'' (1907), which went through many editions. He had an acrimonious relationship with the composer

Max Reger Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 187311 May 1916) was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, as a musical director at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, Leipzig University ...

, of whose compositions he usually had negative opinions. After the first performance of Reger's Sinfonietta on 2 February 1906, Louis wrote a typically negative review in the ''Münchener Neueste Nachrichten'' on 7 February. Reger wrote to him: ''Ich sitze in dem kleinsten Zimmer in meinem Hause. Ich habe Ihre Kritik vor mir. Im nächsten Augenblick wird sie hinter mir sein'' (''I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me!''). Rudolf Louis died in Munich in 1914, aged 44.

References

1870 births 1914 deaths German music educators German conductors (music) German male conductors (music) German music critics German male non-fiction writers 19th-century German musicians 19th-century German male musicians {{Germany-conductor-stub