Edward Dannreuther

Childhood and training

In 1846, when Dannreuther was barely two years old, his family moved to Cincinnati, where his father set up a piano factory within the city's large German community. The young man took his first lessons from Frederick L. Ritter and, in 1860, entered the Leipzig Conservatory. There he studied piano with Moscheles, counterpoint and theory with Hauptmann and E. F. Richter, and attended David's orchestral classes. In these years he befriended Grieg, Franklin Taylor, Sullivan, Rudorff, Walter Bache, Carl Rosa and Wilhelmj, and developed a deep admiration for Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, and above all for Wagner, whose first performance of the Die Meistersinger overture he heard conducted on 1 November 1862.

Arrival in London and early success

In 1863 Henry Chorley, critic of The Athenaeum, brought him to London. His debut was immediate: on 11 April 1863 he played Chopin's F minor Piano Concerto at the Crystal Palace, the first complete performance of it in England, and a fortnight later Beethoven's Fourth Concerto. In 1865 he toured the United States with Carl Rosa and Euphrosyne Parepa, later Rosa's wife. On his return Dickens encouraged him to write an account of his travels for All the Year Round. Under Chorley's patronage he came to know many prominent literary and musical figures in London, among them Grove, Browning, Matthew Arnold, Rossetti, William Morris, Costa and Hallé.

According to his wife's memoirs, the wealthy Chorley meant to make Dannreuther his heir, but changed his mind as Dannreuther's Wagnerian sympathies became ever more evident and as he disapproved of his engagement to Chariclea Ionides, daughter of the Greek textile merchant Alexander Constantine Ionides. They married in 1871, and at about this time he became a British citizen.

Wagnerian circles and musical societies

In 1867 he formed the Working Men's Society with Karl Klindworth, Frits Hartvigson, Walter Bache and Alfred Hipkins. Its private gatherings performed and debated works by Beethoven, especially the late sonatas, together with Chopin and Liszt; later, chiefly at the urging of Klindworth and Dannreuther, Wagner's music dramas were played through. After Klindworth left for Moscow, Dannreuther founded the London Wagner Society in 1872 and conducted two of its concert series between 1873 and 1874.

During this period he became a close friend of Wagner and took a keen interest in the building of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. He acted as English agent for supplying the stage fauna and the dragon for the first Ring performances at Bayreuth in 1876, and contributed greatly to the London Wagner Festival of 1877. During those days Wagner and Cosima stayed at Dannreuther's house in Orme Square, Bayswater, where on 17 May Wagner read the complete poem of Parsifal for the first time, in the company of George Eliot, George Lewes, Parry, Walter Bache, Frederick Jameson and Alfred Forman.

Writings and advocacy of Wagner

During the 1870s and 1880s Dannreuther produced many writings and lectures on Wagner. Among them is his extensive article for the first edition of Grove's Dictionary, which contains much first-hand biographical material still useful to Wagner scholarship. His analysis of Wagner's operatic theories, written before the Ring was completed, is remarkably perceptive. With his fluent German and English he produced accurate translations of Wagner's often complex prose, and for the essay Beethoven he supplied illustrative extracts from Schopenhauer. In 1895 he became President of the London Wagner Society, a post he held until his death.

Pianist and champion of new works

Beyond his advocacy of Wagner, Dannreuther did much to make known works by other composers. As a brilliant virtuoso he gave the first English performances of piano concertos by Grieg, Liszt (in A major), Scharwenka (in B minor), Tchaikovsky (in B minor) and Parry. In the case of the Tchaikovsky concerto he persuaded the composer to revise the solo part, something Nikolay Rubinstein had failed to achieve, and these changes were incorporated into the score published in 1879.

Equally pioneering was the series of semi-private chamber concerts he held at Orme Square between 1876 and 1893, where English audiences heard works by Brahms, Scharwenka, Sgambati, Tchaikovsky, Rheinberger, Stanford, Parry and Richard Strauss for the first time. At the same time he devoted much attention to Renaissance, Baroque and Classical keyboard repertory, whose knowledge he set down in his treatise on ornamentation, which remained a standard reference for many years.

Historical and critical writing

Although much of his scholarly writing reveals his affinity for German art and philosophy, as shown by his contribution The Romantic Period to the Oxford History of Music, which venerates the Beethoven and Wagner legacy, he also wrote perceptively on Berlioz and Chopin. His command of the nineteenth-century virtuoso piano repertory was equally considerable, as the surviving part of his private music library demonstrates.

Composition, editions and teaching

As a composer he concentrated almost exclusively on song forms and published several collections, many of which were performed at Orme Square. He also prepared editions of Liszt's Paganini Studies (London, 1899), Transcendental Studies (London, 1899) and Three Concert Studies (London, 1898). As a teacher he proved the vital catalyst in the early career of Hubert Parry; his other pupils included J. A. Fuller Maitland, Frederick Dawson, William Hurlstone and James Friskin. In 1895 he succeeded Ernst Pauer as piano professor at the Royal College of Music.

Legacy

Dannreuther was a key intermediary between German musical culture and the British sphere. His dual role as performer and writer allowed him to bridge classical repertory, the new music of his day and Wagnerism, and his work as translator, editor and teacher left a lasting mark on English musical life at the end of the nineteenth century.