Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe (1796 – 1869), usually called Carl Loewe, was a German composer, tenor singer and conductor.
In his lifetime, his songs (Lieder) were well enough known for some to call him the "Schubert of North Germany", and Hugo Wolf came to admire his work.
He is less known today, but his ballads and songs, which number over 400, are occasionally performed.
Loewe received his first music lessons from his father. He was a choir-boy, first at Köthen, and later at Halle, where he went to grammar school.
The beauty of Loewe's voice brought him under the notice of Madame de Staël, who procured him a pension from Jérôme Bonaparte, then king of Westphalia, which enabled him to further his education in music, and to study theology at Halle University.
On 20 February 1827, he conducted the first performance of the 18-year-old Felix Mendelssohn's Overture A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 21.
He and Mendelssohn were also soloists in Mendelssohn's Concerto in A-flat major for 2 pianos and orchestra.
Later in life, Loewe became very popular both as a composer and as a singer. As a youth, he had a high soprano voice (he could sing the music of the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute as a boy), and his voice developed into a fine tenor.
This fine composition is written in an early romantic style by someone, who was a famous opera singer.
I tried to play it according to that, with a big buil-up towards the final movement.
It is a small, but very well-written and powerful piece.
The series "Musik zwischen Nord- und Ostsee" can be downloaded at this link:
https://www.nordkirche.de/kirchenmusikportal/notendownload/
Book nr. 01,08, 13,14, 44 and 45 are organ compositions.
This piece comes from nr. 45.
Sign up today to download piece.
See what EdoL used to make this recording