1819–1885 · Romantic
Franz Abt was a German composer and choral conductor who lived from 1819 to 1885. He wrote mostly vocal music: choruses for male voices and songs that at one time people sang everywhere. The site offers his Vocalise No. 1 and the song When the Swallows Homeward Fly, both for voice and piano.
Franz Abt was born on 22 December 1819 in Eilenburg. His father was a clergyman and a gifted pianist, and the boy had his very first music lessons from him. He showed musical talent at an early age.
He studied at the Thomasschule and then at Leipzig University. Music and theology both attracted him, as they had his father, and he planned a career in the church. His school friends included Albert Lortzing, Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.
After his father died, Abt gave up theology and decided to devote himself wholly to music. It was then that he began to compose and to publish, chiefly piano pieces meant for the salons of Leipzig.
In early 1841 he became kapellmeister of the court theatre at Bernburg. His first opera, Fra Diavolo, had its premiere there on 19 February 1841. Around the same time he married Rosalie Neumann.
In the autumn of 1841 Abt became kapellmeister of the Zurich theatre, which was run by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer. The city's singing societies valued him as a singing teacher, a conductor and a favourite composer. He stayed in the city until the autumn of 1852.
In 1844 Abt left the theatre and began to lead several choirs at once, writing a great many choral works for them. In 1848 he became conductor of a Zurich association made up of 24 choral societies. In autumn 1850 he visited Leipzig after nine years away, and when he returned that December he took over the Zurich opera.
In 1852 Abt was invited to the court theatre in Brunswick as second kapellmeister. In the spring of 1855 Georg Müller died, and the duke of Brunswick named Abt first kapellmeister.
From 1858 to 1882 Abt conducted the Brunswick men's choir and led a successful tour of the United Kingdom with it. In June 1856 Abt directed a music festival in Magdeburg alongside Henri Litolff and Julius Mühling.
Choirs in many European capitals often asked him to conduct them, for by then his name was known well beyond Germany. In 1872 he travelled to the United States, where critics and audiences alike welcomed him with great enthusiasm.
A crowded working schedule wore down Abt's health, and by 1882 he had to retire. He died on 31 March 1885 in Wiesbaden and was buried there.
Abt wrote more than 600 opus numbers, which add up to over 3,000 separate pieces. He composed chiefly vocal music, and above all for male choirs, since he felt that such repertoire was in short supply. His greatest successes in Germany and Switzerland came with songs for men's voices.
He supplied mixed choirs with music too, for singing a cappella or with piano or orchestral accompaniment. There are many solo art songs as well, along with part songs and several songs for children. By 1881 Abt had published more than 580 booklets, with 20 to 30 pieces in several of them.
Abt's songs were valued for their pleasing melody, ease of performance and expressiveness. The style is plain and tuneful enough that a few of them pass for folk songs: Die stille Wasserrose, for one, and also Wenn die Schwalben heimwärts ziehn. Gute Nacht, du mein herziges Kind is another of his best known. Helen Tretbar translated several of them into English.
Besides songs, his works include operas, among them Reisebekanntschaften, Die Hauptprobe and Des Königs Scharfschütz. In his youth he composed a great deal for piano, mostly light salon pieces, which never became as popular as his vocal music.
For voice and piano the site has Vocalise No. 1 and the song When the Swallows Homeward Fly (Agathe). Both editions are marked on the site as intermediate level.