Franz Bendel

From 1862, he lived in Berlin and taught at Theodor Kullak's Music Academy, Neue Akademie der Tonkunst.

As a performer as well as a creative artist, Bendel pursued the direction of the serious and solid, and his numerous trips accompanied by the best success (the last one even led him to America occasionally at the Boston Music Festival) were unable to detract from the ideality of his pursuit.

Bendel was under an engagement with the Steinways for a series of eighty concerts in 1874, but typhoid fever caused his death after four days illness in July 1873.

The most admired are the Fantasias on a theme from Gounod's “Faust and Margaret,” Meyerbeer's “Afrikanerin,” and the Bohemian National songs (Op.

His preference for mountain trips were expressed with a series of these type of pieces, with examples from Schweizer Bilder, Op.

Weitzman says, “Bendel portrays the impressions of his journeyings in the fresh air of the valleys and heights of Switzerland; and in the “Sechs deutsche Märchenbilder” (Op.

135, Hamburg, Hugo Pohle), illustrated with more striking colors, the dream-like, weird, and bizarre scenes of these Fantasiestücke pass before our inner vision with dramatic animation.”[4] For a span of time, The Monthly Musical Record reviewed Bendel's works, giving description of his different approaches to his own style.

What we find in his works is elegance, grace, ease, and charm in thought, feeling, and expression, and along with this an always effective pianoforte language.”[5]