Siegfried Alkan (30 March 1858 – 24 December 1941) was a German composer. Alkan was born in

Dillingen, Saarland Dillingen (also: ''Dillingen an der Saar'') (french: Dillange) is a town in the district of Saarlouis, in Saarland. It has about 20,000 inhabitants and is divided into the three districts Dillingen-city center, Pachten and Diefflen. The city is ...

(then

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

, now Germany), the son of Johannes Alkan and Johanna Bonn in a family of merchants and musicians. Through his mother he was a distant cousin of the composers

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy 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 ...

Fanny Hensel Fanny Mendelssohn (14 November 1805 – 14 May 1847) was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era who was also known as Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn Bartholdy and, after her marriage, Fanny Hensel (as well as Fanny Mendelssohn He ...

and

Giacomo Meyerbeer Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Robert le di ...

. It is unknown whether he was related to the French composer and pianist

Charles-Valentin Alkan Charles-Valentin Alkan (; 30 November 1813 – 29 March 1888) was a French Jewish composer and virtuoso pianist. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Lisz ...

, but like the latter, he was a scion of Jewish families from the Moselle region. In 1938 the octogenarian Siegfried Alkan became a victim of the "

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...

". His instruments were destroyed and he himself was beaten by Nazi hordes. In his last years he was forced to wear the yellow star. Many works of Siegfried Alkan seem to be lost. Still known are for example the compositions "Gruß an die Saar" (Op. 32), "O wüsstest du's" (Op. 39), "Neues Saarlied" (Op. 91) and "Ur-Großmütterchen" (Op. 80), which was very popular in the time after World War I.

References

Gregor Brand
Über den saarländischen Komponisten SIEGFRIED ALKAN
(in German) 1858 births 1941 deaths 19th-century German Jews German Romantic composers People from Saarlouis (district) German male classical composers 20th-century German male musicians 19th-century German male musicians {{Germany-composer-stub