| Description: | Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933) was born Siegfried Theodor Karg in Oberndorf am Neckar, Germany, the youngest of twelve children. The family finally settled in Leipzig in 1882, where he received his first musical training and private piano instruction. At a gathering of composers in Leipzig, he presented his first attempts at composition to the composer Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, who arranged a three-year tuition-free scholarship at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied with Jadassohn, Reinecke, Reisenauer and Teichmüller.
Having returned to Leipzig, he started devoting himself to composition, primarily for the piano (encouraged by Edvard Grieg, whom he greatly admired).
Shunned and neglected in Germany, he accepted an invitation for an organ concert tour of America in the spring of 1932. The tour proved to be a disastrous mistake. He was suffering from the diabetes which would soon kill him, and his limited powers as an organist compared unfavorably to the virtuoso standard of organ performance to which American audiences had grown accustomed.
After his return to Leipzig, his health started deteriorating rapidly. He died there in April 1933, only 55 years old.
Karg-Elert's famous "Seven Pastels from the Lake of Contance" was published by Novello in 1923.
Lake Constance, lying below the northern edge of the Alps, is the largest lake in Germany. Also bordered by Austria and Switzerland, it offers strikingly beautiful scenery with incredible views of the Swiss Alps.
"The Legend of the Mountain" is the third piece in the set. It's a piece that has to be "heard" rather than "described," so I'll just say that it has ALL of the features that go to making up Karg-Elert's kaleidoscopic style!
The old Hill does a pretty fine job of supplying the colors needed - although you'll need to be clever in "finding" where they're hiding! ;-)
The score is attached below, as well as two photos of Karg-Elert, and a photo of "the mountain" in the lush Allgäu landscape. |
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