Carl Reinecke was a German pianist, composer, conductor, professor, and music writer; he was born in Altona in 1824 and died in
Leipzig in 1910. 1824 was the year Beethoven's Symphony No.9 premiered, and in 1910 was the premiere of Mahler's Symphony
No.8. Reinecke was alive through almost the entire Romantic musical period. His father, a music teacher, gave him a strict musical
education. However, the family was not wealthy, so he initially only had a very poor grand piano.1 His father's limited skills also
prevented him from developing a brilliant technique as a virtuoso.2 In 1835, Carl Reinecke listened to the performances of Clara Wieck
(1819-1896), who later married Robert Schumann (1810-1856) and Franz Liszt (1811-1886) in 1841. After listening to them, he wanted
to pursue a career as a concert pianist himself.3 Reinecke eventually visited Leipzig. His visit "attracted him with [...] mysterious power to
the music city of Leipzig itself, where numerous artistic personalities live or have met [...]"4 for study from 1843 to 1846, supported by a
scholarship from the Danish King Christian VIII, to further develop as a composer and pianist. In Leipzig, he got to know many important
musicians, such as Mendelssohn and Schumann.
In 1860, Reinecke was appointed the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and professor of composition and piano at
the Leipzig Conservatory. He was active there for 35 years as a conductor and taught for 42 years as a professor.
As a conductor
Although Reinecke had a conservative musical taste, was a believer in absolute music and did not favour modern French, Russian,
Czech and even more recent German composers such as Richard Wagner (1813-1883), another contemporary composer in Leipzig, he
was nonetheless able to distinguish his personal musical tastes from his work as a conductor.5 In particular, he often conducted works by
Wagner and Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) as their contemporaries. In the Gewandhaus Orchestra, he generally could have only two
rehearsals (as he was busy and almost overworked, and the working conditions of the orchestra did not allow him to request additional
rehearsals), which was never enough to perform new works by Wagner or other contemporary composers, and sometimes he even had
to cancel these at the last minute.
His conduct was regarded as warm and friendly but was also occasionally criticized as “his beat did not seem firm and betrayed
uncertainty and restraint.”6 Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski (1840-1893) described him as an experienced conductor “which upholds the
tradition of the famous Leipzig concerts with dignity, if without any particular splendour.”7
As a pianist
In 1843, the Gewandhauskapellmeister in Leipzig of the time—Mendelssohn—made public performances an opportunity for Reinecke at the Gewandhaus. He supported the young and
developing pianist but also criticized his matte touch. Reinecke made his debut on 16 November 1843; however, it was criticized by the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung as lacking “clarity,
certainty and correctness [...] there could hardly be any discussion of artistic conception.”8 Reinecke excelled in chamber music and song accompaniment. Thus, it best suited his inclination as
a pianist to continue to play a significant role as a concerto soloist and chamber music pianist after he became the Gewandhauskapellmaister in 1860. The encounter with Robert Schumann in
1843 also played a significant role for him; he was dedicated to performing and promoting Schumann's works until the end of his life. Schumann also counted him among the few people who
could understand him.9
Reinecke had already acquired a reputation as an excellent Mozart pianist very soon after taking up his posts in Leipzig. Reinecke himself saw the beginning of his fame as a Mozart
interpreter with the performance of the Piano Concerto K. 537 at the end of his first concert season as Gewandhaus-kapellmeister: “On 14 March 1861 [...] I chose to perform Mozart's
Coronation Concerto in D major, as I was contractually obliged to perform as a soloist, and thus began the period in which I would be particularly sought after and appreciated as a concert
pianist.”10
As a composer
Although Reinecke left many compositions, he is best known today as a composer of beautiful children's songs and works for young learners. Mendelssohn recognized his talent but
requested “Self-discipline in the shaping of musical ideas”.11 Reinecke himself wrote to Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885) in 1860 about his compositions: “[...] there is no genius and no original
invention.”12
As an educator and a writer
Reinecke led a hectic life, teaching at the Leipzig Conservatory in between his duties at the Gewandhaus. He taught his students that the performer should stand back, let the composer's
work speak for itself, and not make arbitrary tempo changes. He did not seem very keen on solving his students' technical problems.13 It is probably due to his lack of virtuoso technique and
his belief that a 'showing off' technique has nothing related to interpreting works. Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) recommended Reinecke to his students: “If you think you can still learn
something from someone else, then only Reinecke comes into question."14 However, Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) and Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) made it clear that they were not satisfied with
his lessons.15
Reinecke wrote educational works on music; Die Beethoven’schen Klavier-Sonaten (1873) and Mozart’schen Clavier-Concerte (1881) are important for understanding his
interpretation of music and performance aesthetics.
He appeared on the stage as a pianist long after he had left his conductor’s position in 1895 and his professor’s position in 1902. The Signale für die musikalische Welt reported on one of
his chamber music concerts on 30 January 1904:
The elderly musician, who is about to enter his eightieth year, even performed his last published work, the [...] Trio in A major op. 264 [...] in public [...] When he entered the stage, there
was a colossal applause, quite unusual for an artist, which, after the performance of the Trio, took on dimensions one does not often experience and which clearly showed what rich
sympathies the old Leipzig master still enjoys here. [...] The performance was excellent. Reinecke played so fresh and youthfully, with such ease, that one can only regret that Reinecke is
so seldom heard as a chamber musician. Everyone can still learn from him.16
Thus, despite now being 80 years of age, he was still regarded and respected as a great pianist by the public. It should also be noted that he was reputed to be “the greatest and most sincere
Mozart player of his time.”17 A performance of his arrangement of Mozart's piano concerto preserved on a piano roll in 1905, one of the critical research materials in this paper, is regarded as
amongst the earliest recordings using piano rolls. There is a great deal we can take from his recordings, considering that he was over 80 years old at the time and had indeed been exposed to
earlier performance practice in his younger years, that he was regarded as the heir to a tradition of performance of classical repertoire, and that his performances at the age of 80 were still
highly appreciated.
1. Seidel, Katrin. Carl Reinecke und das Leipziger Gewandhaus (Hamburg: Bockel Verlag, 1998), 119.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid, 21.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid, 73.
6. Ibid, 109.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid, 120. See also “zum Konzert von 16.11.1843”, Die Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, November 17, 1843, Vol.45:689.
9. Reinhold Sietz. "Carl Reinecke” in Die Musik in Geshichte und Gegenwart: Allegemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik, ed. Friedrich Blume, vol.11(Kassel, 1963), 188.
10. Seidel, Carl Reinecke und das Leipziger Gewandhaus, 123.
11. Ibid.114-115.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid. 134.
14. Ibid. 137 and also in the footnote.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid. 152. See also ”zum Konzert vom 30.1.1904”, Die Musikzeitschrift Signale für die musikalische Welt, 3rd February 1904, Vol.62:161.
17. Clive Brown, Neal Peres Da Costa and Kate Bennett Wadsworth. Performing Practices in Johannes Brahms' Chamber Music (Bärenreiter Verlag, 2015), translated by Koji Amazaki and Hiromi Fukuhara (Tokyo: Ongakunotomo, 2020), 39. See also ”Altmeister Karl Reinecke und das Pianola": Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau (11 September 1904), 1039.
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