Charles Martin Loeffler
German-born American composer who blended French, Russian, and jazz influences.
Charles Martin Tornov Loeffler was a German-born American violinist and composer. He is notable for his refined, French- and Russian-influenced idiom and for his late, unexpected turn toward jazz. Loeffler also revived interest in the viola d'amore.
Quick Facts
- Birthplace
- Schöneberg
- Born
- 30 January 1861
- Died
- 19 May 1935 (aged 74)
- Place of death
- Medfield
Facts from the source article.
Family background
Charles Martin Loeffler was born Martin Karl Löffler in Schöneberg near Berlin to parents from Berlin families. The family moved repeatedly, living in Alsace, Smila near Kiev, Debrecen in Hungary, and later Switzerland. His father Karl, an agricultural chemist and republican journalist under the pseudonym "Tornow" or "Tornov", was arrested by Prussian authorities when Charles was about twelve and died of a stroke in prison. Loeffler himself claimed to have been born in Mulhouse, Alsace, and sometimes used his father's pseudonym as a middle name.
Career
Loeffler studied violin in Berlin with Joseph Joachim, Friedrich Kiel, and Woldemar Bargiel, then in Paris with Joseph Massart and composition with Ernest Guiraud. He played with the Pasdeloup Orchestra and emigrated to the United States in 1881, joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra as assistant concertmaster from 1882 to 1903. He became a U.S. citizen in 1887 and later resigned from the orchestra to compose full time. He served on the board of directors of the Boston Opera Company from its start in 1908. Loeffler first performed as a violinist-composer with the Boston Symphony in 1891, playing his suite Les Vieilles d'Ukraine. His works were regularly performed by the Boston Symphony and other American orchestras. He was friends with Eugène Ysaÿe, Dennis Miller Bunker, John Singer Sargent, Gabriel Fauré, Ferruccio Busoni, and later George Gershwin. Loeffler developed an idiom influenced by French and Russian music and Symbolist literature, often used unusual instrument combinations, and became an early modern enthusiast for the viola d'amore. In his later years he wrote works for jazz band. Notable students include Arthur Hartmann, Kay Swift, Samuel Gardner, and Francis Judd Cooke.
Works
Loeffler composed carefully and frequently revised his works; some are lost. His best-known pieces include the symphonic poems La Mort de Tintagiles (after Maeterlinck), La Bonne Chanson (after Verlaine), A Pagan Poem (after Virgil), and Memories of My Childhood (Life in a Russian Village), as well as the song-cycle Five Irish Fantasies (to words by Yeats and Heffernan) and the chamber works Music for Four Stringed Instruments and Two Rhapsodies for oboe, viola and piano. He composed the Fantastic Concert for cello and orchestra (premiered 1894 with Alwin Schroeder) and the Entertainment for violin and orchestra (1895). The symphonic poem La Villanelle du Diable (1901), inspired by a poem by Rollinat and dedicated to Franz Kneisel, was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1902 and later reworked for orchestra and organ. Other works include Les Veillées de l’Ukraine Suite, Une nuit de Mai, Morceau fantastique, Divertimento in A minor, La mort de Tintagiles for two violas d’amore and orchestra, Divertissement Espagnol for alto saxophone and orchestra, La bonne chanson, Intermezzo (Clowns) for jazz band (1928), and Five Irish Fantasies for voice and orchestra (1935).
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