Karl Goldmark

His father, Ruben Goldmark, was a chazan (cantor) to the Jewish congregation at Keszthely, Hungary, where Karl was born.

Karl Goldmark's older brother Joseph became a physician and was later involved in the Revolution of 1848, and forced to emigrate to the United States.

Until he became a member of Vienna's Carl Theatre in 1850, Goldmark was impoverished, surviving on menial odd jobs and handouts.

[Douglas Townsend, liner notes to Columbia Records MS7261, Rustic Wedding (Leonard Berstein, NY Philharmonic)] The Revolution of 1848 forced the Conservatory to close down.

To make ends meet, Goldmark also pursued a side career as a music journalist.

"His writing is distinctive for his even-handed promotion of both Brahms and Wagner, at a time when audiences (and most critics) were solidly in one composer's camp or the other and viewed those on the opposing side with undisguised hostility."

26 (first performed in 1876), a work that was kept in the repertory by Sir Thomas Beecham, includes five movements, like a suite composed of coloristic tone poems: a wedding march with variations depicting the wedding guests, a nuptial song, a serenade, a dialogue between the bride and groom in a garden, and a dance movement.

The concerto had its première in Bremen in 1877, initially enjoyed great popularity and then slid into obscurity.

The concerto has started to re-enter the repertoire with recordings by such prominent violin soloists as Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell.

Goldmark's chamber music, in which the influences of Schumann and Mendelssohn are paramount, although critically well received in his lifetime, is now rarely heard.

39, and the work that first brought Goldmark's name into prominence in the Viennese musical world, the String Quartet in B-flat Op.

Goldmark died in Vienna and is buried in the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery), along with many other notable composers.

(Note: All above works have been recorded by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Fabrice Bollon for cpo label: Vol.