August Nölck

August Nölck (né August Friedrich Robert Nölck; 9 January 1862 in Lübeck — 12 December 1928 in Dresden) was a prolific composer, virtuoso cellist, pianist, and music educator of the German School of Romanticism. He produced over 250 music pieces, many of which have endured and are performed today. Nölck is well known for his cello repertoire.

Styles

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As professor of cello and piano, Nölck composed over three hundred works that included concertos, whims, waltzes, concertina, gavottes, minuets, mazurkas, funeral marches, and the like. However, due to the two World Wars in Germany and political divisions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, only his works produced in Venezuela have been recovered.

Nölck was part of the Dresden School of cello playing, which included Friedrich Wilhelm Grützmacher, who formed a foundation for the modern school of technique represented by Pablo Casals, Emanuel Feuermann, and others. Nölck's music reflects the Romantic styles of Brahms, Schumann, and Mendelssohn.[1]

Nölck studied music at the Bernuthsche Konservatorium in Hamburg, Germany, which was founded 1 October 1873, by Julius von Bernuth [de] (1830–1903). The conservatory was once located at 15 Wexstrasse on the ground floor and at another time, at grosse Theaterstrasse 44 in the home of the piano manufacturer, Otto Börs.[2][i] While at the conservatory, Nölck became friends with a fellow student, Hugo Rüter (1859–1949), who went on to become a notable German composer.

There is limited biographical information on this composer.[3]

Family

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August Nölck was born to the marriage of Johann Daniel Conrad Nölck and Maria Margaretha Bohnhoff.[4] Nölck married Franziska Lewis, the first girlfriend of one of his close friends and conservatory classmate, Hugo Rüter.[5]

Notes

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  1. ^ Otto Börs, Pianofortefabrik, located in Hamburg at grosse Theaterstrasse 44, was founded by Otto Börs in 1850. By 1873, 50 workers were employed there. (Handbuch der Leistungsfähigkeit der gesammten Industrie der Kleinstaaten Norddeutschlands, der süddeutschen Länder, Elsass-Lothringens und der Schweiz, Vol. 2, N°s 4–5, by Christoph Sandler, 1874, pg. 50 OCLC 162973872)
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References

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  1. ^ "The Salon Music of August Nölck, for Cello and Piano," by William Thomas Walker, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: CVNC (Classical Voice of North Carolina – online journal), 10 March 2013
  2. ^ "Julius v. Bernuth" (eulogy), by Emil Kraus (born 1840), Der Klavier-Lehrer, Vol. 26, N° 2, 15 January 1903, pps. 17–19; OCLC 611051641, 224555748
    Archived at the University of Michigan: Musikpädagogische Blatter, Vols. 25–26, edited from January 1878 to July 1899 by Emil Breslaur (1836–1899); edited from January 1990 foreword by Anna Morsch (1841– ; OCLC 19333200, 297695050
  3. ^ "Biography, August Nölck,"[permanent dead link] by the cellist and composer Paul Desenne.
  4. ^ Birth Record: August Friedrich Robert Nölck, Germany, Births and Baptisms, 1558-1898, Family Search
  5. ^ "Hugo Rüter" (bio) (retrieved online 21 October 2016, via www.romana-hamburg.de)