Franz Reizenstein facts for kids

Franz Reizenstein, a talented composer and pianist.

Franz Theodor Reizenstein (born June 7, 1911 – died October 15, 1968) was a composer and concert pianist from Germany who later became British. He moved from Germany to Britain in 1934 to find safety. There, he built a career teaching music and performing. As a composer, he skillfully combined the strong but different styles of his main teachers, Hindemith and Vaughan Williams.

His Early Life and Studies

Franz Reizenstein was born in Nuremberg, Germany. His parents were Dr. Albert Reizenstein, a famous doctor, and Lina Kohn. His family was Jewish and included many professionals, scientists, bankers, and people who loved music.

Franz grew up in Nuremberg and was known as a very talented child. He started writing music when he was just 5 years old. By the time he was 17, he had already written a string quartet, which is a piece for four string instruments. His family was well-off and artistic, and they encouraged him to play chamber music at home. Chamber music is played by a small group of instruments, often in a room rather than a large hall.

Later, he went to study music at the Berliner Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. He studied composition (how to write music) with Paul Hindemith and piano with Leonid Kreutzer. In 1932, he won the Bechstein Prize for his piano playing. He finished his studies a year later.

Moving to England and World War II

In 1934, when he was 23, Franz moved to England. He left Germany to escape the Nazis, who were a dangerous political group. He was one of the first of nearly 70 musicians who left Nazi Europe and settled in Britain between 1933 and 1945.

Once in England, he continued his music education. He studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams and conducting with Constant Lambert at the Royal College of Music. He began to add English musical styles to his own works. He also studied piano for eleven years with Solomon Cutner.

During the 1930s, Reizenstein performed as a pianist. His first public performance in the UK was in April 1935. He was the first to play Hindemith's three piano sonatas in the UK in 1938. He also played with famous violinists like Carl Flesch and Max Rostal. He formed a group called the Reizenstein Trio with violinist Maria Lidka and cellist Christopher Bunting.

His first piece, the Suite for Piano, was published in 1936. He became more well-known with his Prologue, Variations and Finale, written two years later. This piece had South American rhythms, which he got from a trip to Chile and Argentina in 1937.

When World War II started, Reizenstein was held in a camp on the Isle of Man. This was because he was German, even though he was not a threat to Britain. He continued to compose music while in the camp. He was soon released. He was not fit for military service, so he worked as a train conductor during the war. He still kept composing and performing music.

In 1942, he married Margaret Lawson, an English music critic. They had a son named John. That same year, he performed his Piano Concerto No. 1 for the first time in public with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Teaching and Later Life

In 1958, Franz Reizenstein became a professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1964, he also became a professor at the Royal Manchester College of Music. One of his students at the Academy was Philip Martin, whom he taught both piano and composition.

His skills in composition were officially recognized in 1966. He was named a Visiting Professor of Composition at Boston University for six months. Special concerts of his works were also held there.

His Music Style

Franz Reizenstein's music was tonal and expressive. This means it used traditional keys and showed a lot of feeling. He was influenced by Vaughan Williams and the English lyrical style. He also used the clear and complex counterpoint (different melodies played at the same time) of Hindemith.

A music expert named Hugo Cole divided Reizenstein's work into three periods:

• The first period (1936-1945) focused on developing musical ideas, strong rhythms, and complex fugues. His early Piano Concerto is from this time.
• The second period (1947-1959) brought in more sad and expressive music. This includes his Piano Quintet and the Second Piano Concerto.
• The third period (1960-1968) was a more relaxed and friendly style. This period includes his last work, the Concerto for String Orchestra.

He wrote many pieces for orchestras, including overtures (like Cyrano de Bergerac) and concertos (like his two Piano Concertos). He also wrote a Violin Concerto and a Cello Concerto. Sadly, a symphony was unfinished when he died.

His chamber music and piano works are especially well-liked. The most famous is the Piano Quintet in D major, Op. 23 (1949). One critic said it was one of the most important piano quintets of the 20th century, alongside one by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Reizenstein also wrote two operas, Men Against the Sea and Anna Kraus. He composed amazing orchestral music for the Hammer horror films The Mummy (1959) and Circus of Horrors (1960).

You can find recordings of his piano music played by Martin Jones. There are also recordings of his Piano Concerto No. 2 and Cello Concerto. He even recorded some of his own piano works in 1958.

Hoffnung Festivals: Music and Comedy

Franz Reizenstein was part of Gerard Hoffnung's funny music festivals. These festivals were comedy shows that played on the audience's knowledge of music.

For the first festival in 1956, Reizenstein wrote Concerto Popolare. This piece was a joke, pretending to be "a piano concerto to end all piano concertos." In the piece, the orchestra thinks it is playing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. But the pianist thinks they are playing the Grieg Piano Concerto. This leads to a funny musical "battle" between them! The piece also includes parts from other famous tunes like Rhapsody in Blue.

At the 1958 Hoffnung Festival, he helped create Let's Fake an Opera or The Tales of Hoffnung. This was a crazy mix of parts from over forty different operas, which made both Reizenstein and the audience laugh.

Another popular piece was his Variations on The Lambeth Walk. This was a set of piano pieces where each variation copied the style of a famous classical composer. He made fun of the styles of composers like Chopin, Verdi, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Wagner, and Liszt.

Selected Works