Albert Dietrich

Albert Dietrich (b Forsthaus Golk, nr Meissen, 28 Aug 1829; d Berlin, 20 Nov 1908). German conductor and composer.

He attended the Dresden Kreuzschule from 1842 to 1847, studying the piano and composition with Julius Otto. He then studied with Ignaz Moscheles, Julius Rietz and Moritz Hauptmann at the Leipzig Conservatory and attended lectures at the university. In 1851 he went to Düsseldorf, where he was taken into Schumann’s circle and became friendly with Brahms. In the autumn of 1853 he wrote the opening Allegro of the ‘F–A–E’ Violin Sonata (the other movements were composed by Brahms and Schumann) as a greeting for Joachim. Dietrich left Düsseldorf in 1854 and conducted the first performance of his Symphony in Leipzig on 9 December. He then worked in Bonn (1855–61), conducting the subscription concerts and acting as the city’s music director, and at Oldenburg (1861–90), where he was court Kapellmeister and took over the musical education of the grand duchess. In 1890 he retired to Berlin, where he had been a member of the Akademie der Künste from 1888; he received the title of royal professor in 1899.

As a conductor Dietrich championed primarily the works of Bach, Schumann and Brahms and had little sympathy for the music of the New German School. As a composer he was a follower of Schumann, and his works enjoyed a considerable reputation during his lifetime; perhaps his greatest success was as a songwriter. Both his operas were performed in his lifetime; his incidental music to Cymbeline was played in England at the Lyceum revival in 1896. He also wrote a collection of memoirs of Brahms (Erinnerungen an Johannes Brahms in Briefen, besonders aus seiner Jugendzeit, Leipzig, 1898, 2/1899/R), which was translated into English the year after it first appeared.