Ludwig Milde (30 April 1849 – 1913) is known primarily as a composer of music for the bassoon. In particular, his 25 Studies in Scales and Chords (Op. 24) and his 50 Concert Studies (Op. 26) are widely played to this day.

Biography

Milde was born in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

but his life is not well documented. His first name is sometimes spelled in

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as "Ludvík". He died, aged about 64, at

Bad Nauheim Bad Nauheim is a town in the Wetteraukreis district of Hesse state of Germany. As of 2020, Bad Nauheim has a population of 32,493. The town is approximately north of Frankfurt am Main, on the east edge of the Taunus mountain range. It is a worl ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

Published works

Given the date of Milde's death, his studies should now be in the public domain, but it is difficult to find a printed copy with an early enough date to verify this status. The

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Briti ...

catalog lists " 935? as the date of publication for the Friedrich Hofmeister editions (

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

) in their holdings. The Sibley Music Library at the

Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York. It was established in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman. It offers Bachelor of Music ...

(

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

) lists " 9--? as the date for the Opus 24 studies ("Hofmeister Studienwerke; 7381"), but " 964-1966 for the Opus 26 studies. Since they are in brackets, it is to be understood that none of these dates appear on the printed scores. If there are other early copies of the studies extant, they were not found in online sources in late 2007. In the United States, of course, these considerations are irrelevant; since they were first published in 1891, they automatically fall into public domain under current United States copyright law.which places all literature and sheet music whose first United States issue occurred before 1923 into the public domain, and much afterwards too if it fails to have a valid notice of copyright with date, or has failed to have been properly renewed. The International edition commonly used in the US is of more recent origin, and includes copyright material contributed by

Simon Kovar Simon Kovar (May 15, 1890 – January 17, 1970) was a 20th-century bassoonist and one of the most renowned teachers of the instrument. Simon Kovar was born Simon Kovarski in Vilnius, Russian Empire, in 1890. He took up the bassoon at age 20 aft ...

References

Corey, Gerald E. and Jansen, Will: "Ludwig Milde - About the Bassoon, A Genius"; To The World's Bassoonists (publication of the International Double Reed Society), v. 4, #3, 1974.

* Jansen, Will: The Bassoon, Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, 1978 (Book).

External links

* 1849 births 1913 deaths Musicians from Prague German composers German classical bassoonists 19th-century German musicians {{Germany-musician-stub