orpheus chor münchen · Gerd Guglhör, conductor
Priska Eser · Lisa Rothländer · Iris Julien
Andrea Görgner · Felix Rienth · Benedikt Göbel
The orpheus chor münchen, under the direction of its
conductor Gerd Guglhör, already earned laurels with
its recording of the complete choral works of Heinrich
Kaminski. On its new CD, the choir presents works
of a further composer whose life is closely bound with
the Bavarian capital: from 1836, Franz Lachner led the
royal court chapel, and thus, the Munich opera and
court concerts. In 1883, he was made an honorary
citizen of that city. Before the era of Richard Wagner,
Lachner brought the court orchestra to a level that
had never been reached before, and after Wagner left
Munich, he returned again to lead the orchestra for
over a year, with great success.
Franz Lachner – a rediscovered
romantic composer from Munich
Franz Lachner (1803–1890) was born into a
very poor family in Rain am Lech and had
numerous brothers and sisters. His father,
who kept the family afloat working as a city organist
and watchmaker, insisted that all of his
children have theoretical and practical musical
instruction; all should learn voice and violin
as well as piano and organ. Vinzenz Lachner,
Franz’s younger brother, reports, “With
unyielding severity, [our father] taught every
one of his children music by himself – from
the age of five on – from morning till evening.”
The fact that the family had neither music paper
nor books – not to mention any keyboard
instruments – presented no problem; the children
learned to read music from notes written
on the wall and practiced on a dumb piano.
In the end, not only Franz Lachner, but also
five of his siblings became musicians: at 15,
Christina Lachner took over her father’s organ
post after his death and sister Thekla became
organist at Augsburg’s St. Georg city parish
church. While Theodor Lachner was primarily
a music teacher, the two younger brothers
Ignaz and Vinzenz became kapellmeisters in
various large German and European cities.
After the death of his father in 1820, Franz
left school with the permission of his mother
– he had been a scholarship recipient at the
Royal School in Neuburg an der Donau – and
went to Munich, where he hoped to find a
position as a music teacher. Instead, he first
had to earn a meager existence with temporary
jobs as a violinist, cellist, horn player and
contrabassist at the Isartor Theater and as an
organist at the Dreifaltigkeitskirche. In any
event, however, Lachner found a solicitous
teacher in Caspar Ett, organist at St. Michael,
who taught him music theory and organ at
no cost. But because Lachner was unable to
achieve professional independence in Munich,
he made his way to Vienna in 1823.
Shortly after his arrival, Franz Lachner
won the audition for the organ position in
Vienna’s
protestant church; two important
contemporaries and personal acquaintances
of Mozart’s,
namely court kapellmeister Antonio
Salieri and church composer Abbé Stadler,
had been in the jury. It took very little time
before Lachner, who industriously composed
in his spare time, was entrusted with the
direction of the ensemble of the k.k. court opera
theater next to Kärntner Tor. For this reason,
he let his brothers Ignaz and Vinzenz substitute
for him at the organ more and more frequently.
Between 1827 and 1829, Lachner began
to compose sacred music, writing three
masses for orchestra in this time. It can be
assumed that Lachner hoped to find a position
as court kapellmeister with these works. As of
1831, he began appearing as a conductor, and
soon became a favorite of the Viennese public.
In 1833, together with members of the Vienna
court opera orchestra, Lachner founded the
Vienna “Künstlerverein”, a predecessor of the
Vienna Philharmonic.
During his years in Vienna, Franz Lachner
established numerous relationships with
important musical and literary personalities.
He had instruction with Vienna court organist
Simon Sechter and the previously mentioned
Abbé Stadler. He also belonged to Franz Schubert’s
inner circle and even became personally
acquainted with Ludwig van Beethoven.
He developed a life-long friendship with the
painter Moritz von Schwind, whom we thank
today for the so-called “Lachner roll” – a pictorial
biography of the musician painted on a
12½-meter long roll – which included Lachner’s
most important way-stations and numerous
episodes from his life as an artist.
In 1834, Franz Lachner left Vienna to accept
the position of Baden’s grand-ducal court
kapellmeister in Mannheim. His task was to
rehearse operas at the Mannheim court and
national theater as well as conduct the court
orchestra’s winter concerts.
After unsuccessful negotiations with
Berlin – Mendelssohn came in ahead of him
– Lachner went to Munich in 1836. As kapellmeister
of the royal court orchestra, he was
responsible for conducting the opera and
concerts of the court orchestra as well as for
sacred music at the residence court chapel
and in the court churches of St. Michael and
St. Kajetan.
Under the direction of Franz Lachner, a
glorious three decades of musical life dawned
in Munich. Not only did Lachner unite the
ensembles of singers and instrumentalists
that had been separate until then, but he also
raised the artistic level of the court opera orchestra
to unachieved heights; a situation that
first made it possible to stage the demanding
works of his later rival Richard Wagner in
Munich. That Munich’s court ensemble could
also be considered as having top international
ranking can be read out of statements
by Munich theology professor Friedrich, who
had heard performances of sacred music in
Roman churches in 1869/70: “From Lateran, I
went to S. Maria maggiore and attended the
resurrection liturgy with horrible music. As the
singers began, I thought I was in Munich listening
to ‘folk singers’ performing a ‘schnaderhüpfl’.
After the Credo and Agnus Dei, the organ
began playing a polka melody. The church
music is generally awful here, and even the
Lamentations and Miserere in St. Peter, i.e.
the Capella papalis, doesn’t touch our Munich
court chapel” (J. Friedrich, diary, Nördlingen
1871). As head of the concerts of the Musical
Academy as well as in the service of sacred
music, Lachner advanced the tastes of the
public with other accomplishments as well:
not only did he perform music of the Viennese
classic, but was considered a fascinating
Beethoven interpreter. In addition, he was
the Munich discoverer of Handel and Bach:
Bach’s St. Matthew Passion was performed
in Munich for the first time under Lachner’s
direction in 1842. Although the music of the
new German school (Liszt, Wagner, Cornelius
and Bülow) personally did not attract Lachner,
he prepared and rehearsed Wagner’s Tristan
und Isolde (premiere in Munich in 1865 under
Hans von Bülow’s direction), Der Fliegende
Holländer and Meistersinger; he himself conducted
Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. In addition,
Lachner always found time to give lessons (his
students included Joseph Rheinberger, Franz
Wüllner and Engelbert Humperdinck).
As a composer, Lachner was exceptionally
multi-faceted. He wrote nearly 400 works:
in addition to vocal music (masses, psalms,
oratorios and cantatas, choruses, 350 songs)
and stage works (four operas), he also penned
chamber music and instrumental works (including
eight symphonies, eight orchestral suites,
organ works etc.). He also received numerous
honors. In 1852, he was named “General Music
Director” – a title created especially for him. In
1863, the Munich University gave him an honorary
doctorate. Robert Schumann called Lachner
“the most talented and knowledgeable of
all Southern German composers.”
The appointment of Richard Wagner
and Hans von Bülow to in 1864 spoiled Franz
Lachner’s
work at the opera. Although
Wagner recognized Lachner’s work as being responsible
for the exceptional professional
level of the Munich court orchestra, the two
men’s musical ideas were nevertheless incompatible.
Lachner harshly criticized Wagner
– who was effusively honored by King Ludwig
II and who increasingly raised his extravagant
demands. And Wagner conversely expressed
himself in occasionally insulting tones about
Lachner’s talent as a composer. Embittered,
Lachner finally asked to resign.
Lachner’s lasting artistic success was
shown particularly through the admiration of
Munich’s public for him. After Wagner left, he
returned to the conductor’s podium in 1867 for
one more year and was again the celebrated
representative of Munich’s musical culture. In
1883, on his 80th birthday, Franz Lachner was
made an honorary citizen of Munich (other
musicians who have been accorded this honor
include Richard Strauss, Hans Knappersbusch,
Carl Orff, Werner Egk and Sergiu Celibidache).
Franz Lachner died at 86 in January
1890 in Munich. His grave can be found in the
old southern city cemetery.
Lachner and sacred music
Because the expression “sacred music” is not
an accurate term for works of the 19th century,
Lachner’s sacred works cannot be precisely
categorized. If one leaves out the dramatic
oratorio Moses as well as his organ and brass
ensemble works, which were meant to be performed
in the church, a total of 91 larger and
smaller sacred vocal works can be counted.
The most important group is Lachner’s eleven
masses (including a requiem and a mass fragment).
According to what we know today, this
is about one-fifth of Lachner’s entire output.
Only one-third of these works has been printed,
and this still exists primarily in 19th century
editions. In the 32 years of Lachner’s time as
Munich court kapellmeister, he wrote over 70
church compositions in Latin; his most fruitful
phase was between 1853 and 1859, when he
created 40 sacred vocal works. While Lachner’s
works in Latin were written for liturgical
use, his sacred works in German (psalms,
hymns, sacred songs etc.) were only written
for the concert hall. They were heard in concerts
at the musical academies, in the soirees
of the royal vocal chapel or in the concerts of
the Munich oratorio association.
19th century church music in Munich was
characterized by historical, restorative and
reformational tendencies, and sometimes abbreviated
as the “Palestrina Renaissance”.
Athough the main representatives of this primarily
a-cappella musical movement were
Lachner’s former teacher Caspar Ett, Johann
Caspar Aiblinger and Lachner’s later student
Josef Gabriel Rheinberger, some of the movement’s
elements can be found in Lachner’s
music as well. A common feature of his sacred
works from the Munich period is that they are
written for a-cappella voices, to which an organ
is only seldom added. The vocal registration
is exceptionally varied – from two-voice
masses to three-to-seven-voice compositions
for womens’, mens’ or mixed choirs, up to
four-voice mixed double-choirs. In his works
for double-choir, the imitative-concertante
and simultaneously contrasting interplay between
the individual choirs is apparent as well
as highly reminiscent of 16th century Venetian
polychoral models. Characteristic is also the
almost through-composed notation in large
note values, primarily in half notes, whole
notes or breves, mostly in connection with
alla breve meters. In doing this, Lachner was
closely following the notation used during his
time for the works of Palestrina and Lasso.
Through his growing occupation with the
works of Bach, Lachner not only became one
of the driving forces for the Munich Bach renaissance
in the mid-19th century, but his own
works also became more polyphonic than they
were during his Viennese period. Although
Lachner’s harmonies are primarily based on
those of the Viennese classic or the period
shortly thereafter, they are always enriched by
a touch of modality, the imitation of Gregorian
chant or with careful chromaticism, the use of
enharmonics and romantic harmonies. Of the
works performed here, particularly the Stabat
Mater and the Mass in F Major show the union
of historicizing technique, classical form and
romantic expression so typical for Lachner.
Dr. Brigitte Huber
Translation: Elizabeth Gahbler