Heinrich Zöllner (4 July 1854 – 8 May 1941) was a German composer and

conductor Conductor or conduction may refer to: Biology and medicine * Bone conduction, the conduction of sound to the inner ear * Conduction aphasia, a language disorder Mathematics * Conductor (ring theory) * Conductor of an abelian variety * Cond ...

Biography

The son of composer Carl Friedrich Zöllner, Heinrich Zöllner was born in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. From 1875 to 1877 he attended the

Leipzig Conservatory The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig () is a public university in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn as the Conservatorium der Musik (Conservatory of Music), it is the oldest music ...

where he studied music under

Carl Reinecke Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke (23 June 182410 March 1910) was a German composer, conductor, and pianist in the mid-Romantic era. Biography Reinecke was born in what is today the Hamburg district of Altona; technically he was born a Dane, as u ...

, Salomon Jadassohn, and Ernst Friedrich Richter. In 1878, Zöllner became the director of music at the

University of Dorpat The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

(now Tartu) in

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where he stayed for almost seven years. In 1885, he joined the faculty at the

Cologne Conservatory Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and over 3.1 million people in the Cologne Bonn urba ...

and while there he conducted the Cologne Male Voice Choir.Deane L. Root: "Heinrich Zöllner", ''Grove Music Online'' ed. L. Macy (accessed 23 January 2009)
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. Zöllner moved to the

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in 1890 to become the conductor and director of the Deutscher Liederkranz in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. He remained in that position for eight years and achieved considerable success. His cantata, ''Die neue Welt'' (The New World), won a prize at the 1892 Cleveland Sängerfest. Zöllner returned to Leipzig in 1898 to replace

Hermann Kretzschmar August Ferdinand Hermann Kretzschmar (19 January 1848 – 10 May 1924) was a German musicologist and writer, and is considered a founder of hermeneutics in musical interpretation and study. Life and career Born in Olbernhau, Kingdom of Sa ...

as director of music at

Leipzig University Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

, taking over the Paulus male choir. Four years later he was appointed professor of

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

at the university as a replacement for his mentor, Carl Reinecke. From 1903 to 1906, he was the editor of the ''Leipziger Tageblatt''. He was conductor of the Flemish Opera in

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from 1907 until his retirement in 1914. He retired to

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

and worked part-time as an opera critic for the ''Breisgauer Zeitung''. He died in Freiburg aged 86.

Works

Zöllner's compositions include ten

operas Opera is a form of Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a li ...

, five

symphonies A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

, several large-scale works for chorus and orchestra, five

string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...

s, overtures, works for solo and

four-hand piano Piano four hands (, , ) is a type of piano duet involving two players playing the same piano simultaneously. A duet with the players playing separate instruments is generally referred to as a '' piano duo''.Bellingham, Jane"piano duet" ''The O ...

choral music A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

, ''

lied In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...

er'', and numerous smaller vocal pieces. Like his father, Zöllner composed a significant number of pieces for

men's chorus A men's chorus or male voice choir (MVC) (German: ''Männerchor''), is a choir consisting of men who sing with either a tenor or bass voice, and whose music is typically arranged into high and low tenors (1st and 2nd tenor), and high and low bas ...

. However, unlike his father, he showed a preference for large-scale works with full orchestral accompaniment. He is probably best remembered for his 1899 opera ''Die versunkene Glocke'', which enjoyed frequent revivals up until the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Operas

* ''Die lustigen Chinesinnen'' (1885 Cologne, Stadttheater) * ''Faust'' (19 October 1887, Munich, Hoftheater) * ''Matteo Falcone'' (18 December 1893, New York, Irving Place) * ''Bei Sedan'' (1 September 1895, Leipsig, Neues Theater) * ''Der Überfall'' (7 September 1895, Dresden, Hoftheater) * ''Das hölzerne Schwert'' (24 November 1897, Kassel, Hoftheater) * ''Die versunkene Glocke'' (8 July 1899, Berlin, Theater des Westens) * ''Frithjof'' (6 October 1910, Antwerp) * ''Zigeuner'' (15 March 1912, Stuttgart, Hoftheater) * ''Der Schützenkönig'' (18 December 1913, Elberfeld-Barmen, Stadttheater)

Choral works

* ''Hymnus der Liebe'' * ''Die neue Welt'' * ''König Sigurds Brautfahrt'' * ''Die Heerschau'' * ''Bonifazius'' * ''Luther'' (Oratorium)

Sources

References

Don Randel Don Michael Randel (born December 9, 1940) is an American musicologist, specializing in the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Spain and France. He is currently the chair of the board of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a truste ...

: ''The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music'' (Harvard, 1996), p. 1011.
Opera Glass

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zollner, Heinrich 1854 births 1941 deaths 19th-century German classical composers 19th-century German male musicians 20th-century German classical composers 20th-century German male musicians German opera composers German Romantic composers Academic staff of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln Academic staff of Leipzig University German male opera composers University of Tartu alumni