Otto Dresel

Otto Dresel (December 20, 1826 – July 26, 1890) was an American pianist, music teacher and composer of German birth.

[1] And after 1848, faster and safer steamers encouraged European musicians, especially those from Germany, to come to the United States to teach and perform.

He composed mainly chamber music and songs, as well as larger-scale settings of poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes for soloists with orchestra.

Dresel concentrated his energies on the selecting the highest quality music for his performances, and he eschewed displays of facile brilliance as were emphasized by musicians such as Europeans like Henri Herz and Sigismond Thalberg and the American Louis Moreau Gottschalk.

[2] He fostered the appreciation of Bach and Handel in the United States, and was a vigorous promoter of the songs of his friend and colleague Robert Franz.