1803–1890 · Romantic
Franz Lachner was a German composer and conductor, born in Rain in 1803 and died in Munich in 1890. From 1836 to 1867 he was chief conductor of the Bavarian Opera. He wrote over two hundred works, including orchestral suites, operas, a Requiem, chamber music and songs.
Franz Lachner was born on 2 April 1803 in Rain, in Bavaria. From the age of seven he studied music with his father Anton, a church organist. The whole family was musical: Franz's brothers also became known, among them Theodor, a half-brother and organist who lived from 1795 to 1877.
From 1810 to 1816 Franz studied at the gymnasiums of Neuburg and Munich. From 1822 he worked in Munich as a music teacher.
From 1823 to 1827 Lachner served as organist of a Protestant church in Vienna. From 1827 he was vice-Kapellmeister, and from 1829 first Kapellmeister of the Kärntnertor Theatre in Vienna.
In Vienna Lachner met Beethoven and Sechter and was a friend of Schubert.
In 1834–1836 Lachner was court Kapellmeister in Mannheim. In 1835 a competition for the best new symphony was held in Vienna, with the backing of the publisher Tobias Haslinger. No fewer than 57 works were entered. First prize went to his 5th Symphony, the Sinfonia passionata, also known as the Preis-Symphonie.
From 1836 Lachner lived in Munich. Between 1836 and 1867 he held the post of chief conductor at the Bavarian Opera, and he led concerts of the Academy of Music and the court chapel as well. In 1852–1865 he was at the same time general music director in Munich. He led music festivals in Munich (1855 and 1863), Salzburg (1855) and Aachen (1861–1870).
In 1864 Hans von Bülow, a disciple of Richard Wagner, took over his duties, after which Lachner's Munich career came to a sudden end. For a few more years he formally kept the post while on a long leave, until his contract ran out.
He taught the composers Franz Wüllner, Joseph Rheinberger, Jiří Herold and Leo Grill, as well as the music theorist Julius Gay. In 1853 he was honoured with the Order of Maximilian for achievements in science and art, and in 1863 he became an honorary doctor of philosophy of the University of Munich.
Franz Lachner died on 20 January 1890 in Munich. He was buried in the city's Old South burial ground.
Lachner wrote more than two hundred works. In orchestral music he showed himself a master of counterpoint, and in symphonic and chamber music he is regarded as a follower of Bach, Handel and Schubert. He is one of the founders of the orchestral suite as a genre. His seventh orchestral suite (1881) was among his greatest successes.
During his lifetime Lachner had a name as a productive composer, although today he is ranked below the major figures. His music is thought of as skilled and well crafted, yet it is little known now. His biggest successes included the opera Catarina Cornaro (1841), the Requiem and the seventh orchestral suite.
Perhaps the most attention today goes to his organ sonatas (Opp. 175, 176, 177) and to his chamber music, especially works for wind instruments. A few of his string quartets, and of his eight symphonies, have likewise been given in concert and put on disc. A number of his songs use texts that Schubert had also used, and they played a part in the growth of the German Lied.