| Information: |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Friedrich Kiel (8 October 1821 - 13 September 1885) was a German composer and music teacher.
Writing of the chamber music of Friedrich Kiel, the famous scholar and critic Wilhelm Altmann notes that it was Kiel's extreme modesty which kept him and his exceptional works from receiving the consideration they deserved. After mentioning Brahms and others, Altmann writes, "He produced a number of chamber works, which . . . need fear no comparison."
Kiel was born in Bad Laasphe, Puderbach. He was taught the rudiments of music and received his first piano lessons from his father, but was in large part self-taught. Something of a prodigy, he played the piano almost without instruction at the age of six, and by his thirteenth year he had composed much music. Kiel eventually came to the attention of Prince Albrecht Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, a great music lover. Through the Prince's efforts, Kiel was allowed to study violin with the concertmaster of the Prince's fine orchestra with which he later performed as a soloist. Kiel was also given theory lessons from the renowned flautist Kaspar Kummer. By 1840, the eighteen-year-old Kiel was court conductor and the music teacher to the prince's children. Two years later, Louis Spohr heard him and arranged for a scholarship which allowed Kiel to study in Berlin with the renowned theorist and teacher Siegfried Dehn. In Berlin, Kiel eventually became sought after as an instructor. In 1866, he received a teaching position at the prestigious Stern conservatory, where he taught composition and was elevated to a professorship three years later. In 1870 he joined the faculty of the newly founded Hochschule fur Musik which was shortly thereafter considered one of the finest music schools in Germany. Among his many students were Zygmunt Noskowski, Arthur Somervell, Ernst Eduard Taubert, Charles Villiers Stanford, Frederic Hymen Cowen, Emil Sjogren, Waldemar von Baunern, Julius Buths and Ignacy Jan Paderewski.
Kiel's hobby was mountaineering and at age 60, he climbed Europe's second highest peak, the Monte Rosa, on the Swiss-Italian border. He died in Berlin two years later as the result of a traffic accident
|