# Felix Draeseke



## ScipioAfricanus

(October 7, 1835 – February 26, 1913) 
Chamber works
Quartets: 
String quartet nr. 1 in c, op 27 (1880) 
String quartet nr. 2 in e, op 35, (1886) 
String quartet nr. 3 in c#, op 66 (1895) 

Quintets: 
Quintet in B-flat for piano, violin, viola, cello, and horn, op 48 (1888) 
Quintet in A 'Stelzner-Quintett' for violins (2), viola, violotta, and cello (1897) 
Quintet in F for violins (2), viola, and celli (2), op 77 (1901) 

Sonatas (with piano): 
Viola Sonata No. 1 in c minor, WoO 21 (1892) 
Viola Sonata No. 2 in F, WoO 26 (1902) 
Clarinet Sonata in B-flat op. 38 
Violin Sonata in B-flat op 38 (alternate version of the clarinet sonata) 
Cello Sonata, op. 51 (1890) 

Suites: 
Suite for Two Violins, op. 86 (1911) 
Kleine Suite for English Horn (or Oboe) and Piano, op 87 (1911) 

Other: 
Ballade for Cello and Piano in b, op 7 (1867) 
Barcarole for Cello and Piano in a, op 11 (1872) 
Scene for Violin and Piano, op. 69 (1899) 
Adagio for Horn and Piano, op 31 (1885) 
Romanze for Horn and Piano, op 32 (1885) 

Vocal Music (Sacred): 
Lacrimosa, op 10 (1865) 
Requiem in b, op 22 (1883) 
Adventlied, op 30 (1871-5) 
Salvum fac regem, op 55 (1889) 
Psalm 93, op 56 (1889) 
Four Sacred Songs for Mixed Chorus, op 57 (1891) 
Psalm 23, op 59 (1889) 
Grand Mass in f#, op 60 (1890) 
Christus. Mysterium in a Prelude and Three Oratorios, opp 70-3 (1895-9):
Vorspiel: Die Geburt des Herrn, (Prelude: The Birth of the Lord) op 70
First Oratorio: Christi Weihe (Christ's Consecration), op 71
Second Oratorio: Christus der Prophet (Christ the Prophet), op 72
Third Oratorio: Tod und Sieg des Herrn (Death and Victory of the Lord), op 73 
Grand Mass in a, op 85 (1908-9) 
Requiem in e (1909-10) 
Psalm 57 for baritone, chorus, and orchestra, WoO 31 (1907) 

Vocal Music (Secular, Orchestral): 
Germania an ihre Kinder, after Kleist, soprano, male chorus, and orchestra, WoO 3a (1859) 
Die Hermannsschlacht, Music for Kleist's Play, WoO 4 (1860) 
Der Schwur im Rutli (The Oath in Rutli), Cantata for soprano, and male chorus, WoO 9 (1862-3 version for wind orchestra; 1868 version for full orchestra) 
Osterszene nach Goethes Faust (Easter Scene after Goethe's Faust), op 39 (1887) 
Columbus, Cantata for soprano, baritone, male chorus, and orchestra, op 52 (1890) 
Sachsen-Hymne, for male chorus and orchestra, WoO 23 (1893) 
Der Deutsche Sang (The German Song), for male chorus, op 64 (1897) 
Faust in Schlaf Gesungen, for chorus and orchestra, WoO 32 (1907) 
Parzengesand, after Goethe's Iphigenie, for alto and orchestra, WoO 33 (1907) 

Vocal Music (Secular, Piano Accompaniment): 
Helges Treue, op 1 (1859) 
Frage und Antwort (Question and Answer) after Moerike for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), WoO 5 (1861) 
Lieder, op 2: I Märzblumen (6 songs); II Cypressen (6 songs); III Heliotropen (see op 76) 
Weihestunden. Six songs for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 16 (1880) 
Buch des Frohmuts. Six songs for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 17 (1880) 
Bergidylle. Ballade for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 18 (1880) 
Ritter Olaf. Ballade for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 19 (1881) 
An den Mond, for baritone (or mezzo-soprano) and piano, WoO 16 (1881) 
Landschaftsbilder. Six songs for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 20 (1881) 
Trauer und Trost. Six songs for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 24 (1880) 
Vermischte Lieder. Six songs for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 26 (1881) 
Liebeswonne und -weh. Six songs for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 29 (1880) 
Gedenkblätter Two songs for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 33 (1880) 
Two Ballades for baritone (or mezzo-soprano), op 34 (1880) 
Das Schloss am Meer, op 53 (1897) 
Der Tod kennt den Weg. Ballade for bass, op 58 (1897) 
Five Songs, op 61 (1896) 
Four Songs, op 62 (1896) 
Five Songs, op 67 (1899) 
Three Songs, op 68 (1899) 
Drei Geistliche Gesänge, op 75 (1901) 
Drei Gesänge, op 76 (1906) 
Frühlingsgruss, op 78 (1906) 
Die Traurige Krönung, op 80 (1906) 
Four Songs, op 81 (1906) 
Four Songs, after Grete Ihle, WoO 39 (1912) 

Vocal Music (Secular, a-cappella): 
Three Songs for Male Chorus, op 28 (1880-5) 
Die Heinzelmännchen, op 41 (1887) 
Dem Deutschen Volke ist Gegeben, for male chorus, op 46 (1888) 
Meleagerchor for 6 soloists and mixed chorus, WoO 18 (1888) 
Four Songs for Women's Chorus, op 47 (1889) 
Gesang zur Fahnenweihe, WoO 20 (1890) 
Getrennte wege, for four-part women's chorus, WoO 28 (1903) 
Fugen, for four voices, WoO 37 (1910-1) 
Dämmerung, after Weitbrecht, for male chorus, WoO 41 (?) 
Auflösung on Brahms' Canon "Töne lindernder Klang", WoO 42 (?) 

Melodrama: 
Der Mönch von Bonifazio, op 7


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## ScipioAfricanus

Symphonies: 
Symphony in C "Jugendsinfonie" (performed in 1856; subsequently destroyed) 
Symphony nr. 1 in G, op 12 (1868-72) 
Symphony nr. 2 in F, op 25 (1876) 
Symphony nr. 3 in C op 49 "Symphonia Tragica" (1885-6) 
Symphony nr. 4 in e " Symphonia Comica" (1912) 

Symphonic Poems: 
Julius Caesar, WoO 6 (1860, revised 1865) 
Frithjof, WoO 7 (1865) 
Thunersee, WoO 27 (1903) 

Symphonic Preludes: 
Das Leben ein Traum (after Calderon), op 45 (1888) 
Penthesilea (after Kleist), op 50 (1888) 
Der Traum ein Leben (after Grillparzer), WoO 29 (1904) 

Overtures: 
Akademische Festouvertüre, op 63 (1890) 
Jubel-ouvertüre, op 65 (1898) 
Ouvertüre zum Namenstag des Fürsten Constantin, WoO 8 (1862) 

Other Orchestral: 
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in E-flat, op 36 (1885-6) 
Symphonic Andante for Cello and Orchestra in e, WoO 11 (1876) 
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, WoO 15 (1881) 
Serenade in D, op 49 (1888) 
Jubiläumsfestmarsch, op 54 (1886) 
Trauermarsch, op 79 (1906) 
Feenzauber, Konzertstück for harp and orchestra, WoO 36 (1910) 
Germania-Marsch, WoO 3c (1861) 
Other Marches 

Operas & Theater Works (Libretti by Felix Draeseke): 
WoO 2 König Sigurd - Opera in 3 Acts after Emanuel Geibel's Sigurd (1853-7)

WoO 12 Dietrich von Bern - Opera in 3 Acts (1877; revised by Otto zur Nedden, 1925) 
WoO 13 Herrat - Opera in 3 Acts (1877-9, revised 1885) 
WoO 14 Gudrun - Opera in 3 Acts (1879-84) 
WoO 17 Der Waldschatzhauser (1882) 
WoO 22 Bertran de Born - Opera in 3 Acts (1892-4) 
WoO 24 Fischer und Kalif - Comic Opera in 1 Act (1894-5) 
WoO 30 Merlin - Opera in 3 Acts, after K.L. Immermann (1903-5)


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## ScipioAfricanus

Sonata for Piano: 
Sonata quasi fantasia in c#, op 6 (1862-7) 

Other Keyboard: 
Fantasiestücke in Walzerform, op 3: Nr. 1 in B; Nr. 2 in A-flat (1862) 
Polonaise in D, WoO 10 (1864) 
Zwei Konzertwalzer, op 4: Nr. 1 in E-flat; Nr. 2 in D-flat (1867) 
Zwei Konzertwalzer, op 5: Valse-Nocture in E; Valse-Scherzo in c# (1862-7) 
Fantasie on Themes from Boieldieus "Weisse Dame", op 8 (1866) 
Petite Histoire, op 9 (ca. 1869) 
Fata Morgana, op 13 (1877) 
Dämmerungsräume: Five piano pieces, op 14 (1876-7) 
Six Fugues, op 15 (1876) 
Was die Schwalbe sang, Five lyric pieces, op 21 (1883) 
Miniaturen, Six piano pieces, op 23 (1883) 
Rückblicke. Five lyric piano pieces, op 43 (1888) 
Scheidende Sonne, Nine piano pieces, op 44 (1888) 
Neun Albumblätter, WoO 19 (1888) 
March in C-major, WoO 40 (?) 

Piano, Four-Hands: 
Kanons (18), op 37 (1882-8) 
Kanonische Rätsel, op 42 (1888) 
Overture to "Niklas Zriny", WoO 1 (1849


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## ScipioAfricanus

I have a strong urge to promote Draeseke. I will post his bio later.


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## ScipioAfricanus

Felix August Bernhard Draeseke (October 7, 1835 - February 26, 1913) was a composer of the "New German School" admiring Liszt and Richard Wagner. He wrote compositions in most forms including eight operas and stage works, four symphonies, and much vocal and chamber music.

Life
Felix Draeseke was born in the Franconian ducal town of Coburg, Germany. He was attracted to music early in life and wrote his first composition at age 8. He encountered no opposition from his family when, in his mid-teens, he declared his intention of becoming a professional musician. A few years at the Leipzig conservatory did not seem to benefit his development, but after one of the early performances of Wagner's Lohengrin he was won to the camp of the New German School centered around Franz Liszt at Weimar, where he stayed from 1856 (arriving just after Joachim Raff's departure) to 1861. In 1862 Draeseke left Germany and made his way to Switzerland, teaching in the Suisse Romande in the area around Lausanne. Upon his return to Germany in 1876, Draeseke chose Dresden as his place of residence. Though he continued having success in composition, it was only in 1884 that he received an official appointment to the Dresden conservatory and, with it, some financial security. In 1894, two years after his promotion to a professorship at the Royal Saxon Conservatory, at the age of 58, he married his former pupil Frida Neuhaus. In 1912 he completed his final orchestral work, the Fourth Symphony. On February 26, 1913, Draeseke suffered a stroke and died; he is buried in the Tolkewitz cemetery in Dresden.

[edit] Music and Styles
During his career Draeseke divided his efforts almost equally among compositional realms and composed in most genres, including symphonies, concertos, opera, chamber music, and works for solo piano. With his early Piano Sonata in c-sharp Sonata quasi Fantasia of 1862-1867 he aroused major interest, winning Liszt's unreserved admiration of it as one of the most important piano sonatas after Beethoven. His operas Herrat (1879, originally Dietrich von Bern) and Gudrun (1884, after the medieval epic of the same name) met with some success, but their subsequent neglect has kept posterity from understanding Draeseke as one of the few true successors to Wagner and one of the very few who could conceive dramatically convincing and musically compelling examples of "Gesamtkunstwerk".

Draeseke keenly followed new developments in all facets of music. His chamber music compositions make use of newly developed instruments, among them the violotta, an instrument developed by Alfred Stelzner as an intermediary between viola and cello, which Draeseke used in his A major String Quintet, and also the viola alta, an instrument developed during the 1870s by Hermann Ritter and the prototype of viola expressly endorsed by Richard Wagner for his Bayreuth Orchestra.

A master contrapuntist, Draeseke reveled in writing choral music, achieving major success with his B minor Requiem of 1877-1880, but nowhere proving more convincingly his powers in this direction than in the staggering Mysterium Christus which is composed of a prolog and three separate oratorios and requires three days for a complete performance, a work which occupied him between the years 1894-1899 but whose conception reaches back to the 1860s. Of all the symphonies from the second half of the 19th century which are unjustly neglected, Draeseke's Symphonia Tragica (Symphony No. 3 in C major, op. 40) is one of the very few which deserves repertory status alongside the symphonies of Brahms and Bruckner, a masterful fusion of intellect and emotion, of form and content. Orchestral works like the Serenade in F major (1888) or its companion of the same year, the symphonic prelude after Kleist's Penthesilea have in them all that is declared necessary for audience success: rich melodic invention, rhythmic vivacity, and extraordinary harmonic conception. Draeseke's chamber music is equally rich.

[edit] Estimation
During his life, and the period shortly following his death, the music of Draeseke was held in high regard, even among his musical opponents. His compositions were performed frequently in Germany by the leading artists of the day, including Hans von Bülow, Arthur Nikisch, Fritz Reiner, and Karl Böhm. However, as von Bülow once remarked to him, he was a "harte Nuß" ("a hard nut to crack") and despite the quality of his works, he would "never be popular among the ordinary". Draeseke could be sharply critical and this sometimes led to strained relations, the most notorious instance being with Richard Strauss, when Draeseke attacked Strauss's Salome in his 1905 pamphlet Die Konfusion in der Musik - rather odd as Draeseke was a clear influence on the young Strauss.

Draeseke's music was promoted during the Third Reich[citation needed]. After the Second World War, changes in fashion and political climates allowed his name and music to slip into obscurity. But as the 20th century ended, new recordings spurred a renewed interest in his music. An ever widening audience seems to be developing for Draeseke at last and the phenomenon is based on perception of individuality, inventiveness and stylistic integrity, music which truly rewards attention.


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## Aramis

ScipioAfricanus said:


> I have a strong urge to promote Draeseke.


Sorry, but your promotion is terrible.

Do you really hope that someone is going to check him out because you pasted list of his works here? Or scientific/historical view on his life?

Personally I won't even bother to read.

If you want to promote him, then write something interesting for yourself. So far I don't care for your "promotion" more than for any accidentally encountered note in encyclopedia.


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## ScipioAfricanus

*Draeseke's Piano Sonata C sharp minor*

Part 1





Part 2


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## ScipioAfricanus

*Draeseke's Symphony no 3. Tragica*

First Movement
http://draeseke.com/sounds/Draeseke-TragicaSymphony_1.mp3

Second Movement
http://draeseke.com/sounds/Draeseke-TragicaSymphony_2.mp3

Third Movement
http://draeseke.com/sounds/Draeseke-TragicaSymphony_3.mp3

Fourth Movement
http://draeseke.com/sounds/Draeseke-TragicaSymphony_4.mp3


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## ScipioAfricanus

don't let my bad promotion of him skew your opinion of him to make you disinterested in his music. Draeseke was a formidable competitor of Brahms.


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## Jeremy Marchant

Never heard of him.
Listening cold, I put it at 1875, but the style is somewhat eclectic. Not very tragic (!) and rather Brhamsian when he gets to the point. 
I appreciate music should speak for itself, but a few words would get the thread going, Scipio.


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## Jeremy Marchant

ScipioAfricanus said:


> Draeseke was a formidable competitor of Brahms.


Competitor? Is that a good thing or bad thing? Why?


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