Sándor Erkel (2 January 1846 – 14 October 1900) (Hungarian: Erkel Sándor) was a Hungarian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

, conductor and director of the Hungarian State Opera.

Biography

Born in

Buda Buda (, ) is the part of Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, that lies on the western bank of the Danube. Historically, “Buda” referred only to the royal walled city on Castle Hill (), which was constructed by Béla IV between 1247 and ...

, Erkel was the youngest son of the famous Hungarian composer,

Ferenc Erkel Ferenc Erkel ( , ; November 7, 1810June 15, 1893) was a Hungarian composer, conductor and pianist. He was the father of Hungarian grand opera, written mainly on historical themes, which are still often performed in Hungary. He also composed t ...

. He first studied music with his father; later his teacher was another Hungarian composer, Mihály Mosonyi. He started his career just as an orchestra musician of the National Theatre in Pest playing

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

; he was also the

dulcimer The term dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments. Hammered dulcimers The word ''dulcimer'' originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of ...

soloist at the premiere of his father's opera, the ''

Bánk bán Bánk is a village and municipality in the comitat of Nógrád, Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the nor ...

''. Later he became the conductor of the theatre's orchestra, and at the age of thirty in 1876, he was appointed the music director of the ensemble. In 1884, Erkel became the music director of the newly established Hungarian State Opera (1884–1886), – its founding director was his father, Ferenc – premiering Hungarian and foreign operas. Erkel accepted the chairman-conductor position of the

Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra The Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra (Hungarian language, Hungarian: ''Budapesti Filharmóniai Társaság Zenekara'') is Hungary's oldest extant orchestra. It was founded in 1853 by Ferenc Erkel under the auspices of the Budapest Philharmonic Societ ...

in 1875, a post he held until 1900.

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...

premiered his ''Piano concerto no. 2.'' with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra on 9 November 1881 in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, with Erkel as conductor. GOING OUT GUIDE by Richard F. Shepard, November 11, 1981, ''The New York Times''
Erkel died unexpectedly in

Békéscsaba Békéscsaba (; ; see also #Name, other alternative names) is a city with county rights in southeast Hungary, the capital of Békés County. Geography Békéscsaba is located in the Great Hungarian Plain, southeast from Budapest. Highway 44, 47 ...

on 14 October 1900. As a composer his oeuvre is relatively small, including orchestral and choral works. His only opera, ''Csobánc'', was premiered on 13 December 1865.

References

Sources

* Szabolcsi Bence - Tóth Aladár: ''Zenei lexikon'', Zeneműkiadó Vállalat, 1965. I. p. 576.
GOING OUT GUIDE by Richard F. Shepard , November 11, 1981, ''The New York Times''
*Vasárnapi Ujság, 1900/42 Hungarian male conductors (music) Conductors (music) from Austria-Hungary Composers from Austria-Hungary Hungarian composers Hungarian male composers 19th-century composers People from Buda 1846 births 1900 deaths 19th-century male musicians Burials at Kerepesi Cemetery Chief conductors of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra {{Hungary-composer-stub