Gustav Flügel
[1] The father had already sung as a poor boy in the church choir at Köthen, "and had, since he possessed a fine musical ear, occasionally had to act as soloist.
In the summer of 1828, Flügel performed his first work with friends in the Nienburg "Schwan": Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer (after Schiller) for solo voices, choir and piano.
Dessau provided the aspiring musician with role models and inspiration through concerts by musical greats of the time, impressing him among others Henriette Sontag, Adolf Friedrich Hesse and Niccolò Paganini.
On 26 June 1835, the young Flügel visited Robert Schumann (first mention in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik), with whom he kept in touch by letter and in person for years to come.
On Schumann's advice, Flügel moved to Magdeburg in April 1836, where Richard Wagner was also working at the city theatre at the time.
He accepted the post at the end of March 1838 and thus gained his first permanent position, although he continued to work as a music teacher on the side and probably had to remain so.
Private lessons, the direction of the singing society, with which I performed Spohr's 'Jessonda' and Anacker's 'Miner's Greeting'**), continued cultivation of piano playing for concert events, as well as occupation with musical composition took up all my time.
"[11] In October, Flügel conducted a performance by the Gesangverein of Hallelujah (Handel) [de], finale from Don Giovanni and choruses from Christ on the Mount of Olives.
– My wife, probably as a result of her not easy delivery, was thrown onto a long and heavy bed of sickness; at the same time I had to endure a gastric-nervous fever with a relapse – we were in trouble and distress".
"[13] In 1840, Flügel moved to Stettin, where he worked as a private music teacher in the first houses of the city (Wilsnach, Lobedan, Schallehn etc.)
In terms of family and health, however, Flügel lived close to disaster, which culminated in 1844 and only came to an exceedingly unhappy end with the death of his first wife Minna in 1847.
20 from the manuscript, "a very interesting work which met with much applause"[16] Flügel himself founded the Stettin branch of the Tonkünstlerverein in 1848 together with Carl Koßmaly [de], which organised concerts and lectures.
In 1848, Flügel became a contributor to the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik and published there and in other journals a large number of reviews and also essays on music theory.
In 1850, he was appointed seminary music teacher in Neuwied, where he also gave piano lessons to Elisabeth of Wied, later Queen of Romania ("Carmen Sylva").
He liked to dedicate the works he wrote here to his superiors (Bühring, Landfermann) and to the Prussian royal family, to the Princess of Prussia the Concertouverture (Op.
Under Flügel's direction, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who was living in Neuwied at the time, was appointed honorary member of the Liedertafel.
In many respects, his friendship with the pedagogue Ernst Julius Hentschel [de] was significant, which resulted in a lively correspondence and Flügel's collaboration in the Euterpe until his death.
While the youngest of Flügel's children were born, his son Ernst successfully followed in his father's footsteps as a pianist and composer.
During this time, Flügel updated his catalogue raisonné (1880), he wrote down his memoirs and published them[19] along with his correspondence with musicians such as Mendelssohn, Spohr, Hentschel and Kühmstedt in various journals.
[20] With the death of his son Carl (2 February 1882), Flügel stopped composing secular songs, he no longer gave private lessons and from then on concentrated strictly on his official, church duties as organist.
Since he was not entitled to any pension even after almost 40 years as castle organist, the work was initially assigned to his successor on an honorary basis on 3 April 1898.
In time for the composer's 200th birthday, the Pomeranian Library in Szczecin put a large number of Flügel's original printed music online.
The spectrum ranges from the early piano sonatas oriented towards Weber and Beethoven to the late concert pieces for organ with Wagnerian colouring.
This is one of the reasons why the true artistic spirit often succeeds so late, sometimes not at all, in making itself heard with its genuine sounds amidst the market bells and pimping.
Therefore, one should not only try to help important artists with reviews, but should call out boldly, firmly and loudly in small leading articles to the musically surrounded world: direct your ear and your attention here, there sing and sound the ways of the heart.
That is why nowhere does mere ear candy appear, just as no common thoughtless or frivolous fashionistas dare to come near his noble artistic spirit.
What the greatest masters carried in them in the way of aesthetically guiding maxims that enable art, he has eavesdropped on and absorbed into himself as laws, but he leaves them their thoughts and works his creations out of his own material.
25.2 by the Flügel quite well-meaning E. Bernsdorf: "In the Sea Voices we encounter a veritable confusion of figures and phrases, which are just as incapable of presenting a picture to the soul as mere splashes of colour make up a painting".
Although committed to the classical school (Flügel was inclined to the strict forms of the sonata, canon and fugue throughout his life), he did not follow Brahms's appeal "Against the New Germans" (1860).
82, 85, 88 and 109 were recorded for the Sender Freies Berlin,[34] Other large concert pieces and chorale preludes have experienced new editions since 1997, which document their lasting value.
