Карл Рейнеке

Born in Altona, then under Danish rule, and taught by his father, he toured as a pianist, met Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt, and in 1846 became court pianist in Copenhagen; from 1860 he conducted the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and taught at the conservatory, holding both posts for more than thirty years and giving important first performances, among them the complete German Requiem. Grieg, Janáček, Albéniz, Sullivan, Sinding and Weingartner passed through his classroom. Of nearly three hundred published works, the flute sonata Undine and the Flute Concerto in D major remain in the flute repertoire. He is also among the earliest-born pianists whose playing can still be heard, on reproducing piano rolls. Before Leipzig he taught piano at the Cologne Conservatory from the age of twenty-seven, took the conductor's desk there in Ferdinand Hiller's place and then held the post of music director in Breslau. Max Bruch and Frederick Delius were also his pupils, and he wrote books on the interpretation of Mozart's piano concertos and Beethoven's piano sonatas; the rolls that preserve his playing were cut for Welte-Mignon in 1905.