1779–1826 · Germany · Classical
Louise Reichardt (1779–1826) was a German singer, composer and choral conductor who lived in Hamburg from 1809. She wrote songs for voice and piano in an accessible, folk-like style, setting words by Novalis, Tieck and other poets close to her family, and she founded a women's choir in Hamburg. For pianists today, her music is of interest chiefly through these songs, which span several levels of difficulty.
Louise Caroline Reichardt was born on 11 April 1779 in Berlin. Her father, the composer and writer Johann Friedrich Reichardt, gave her music lessons, though he was often away travelling; her mother, the singer and composer Juliane Reichardt, was the youngest daughter of the violinist and composer Franz Benda. Louise's grandfather and father served at the court of Frederick the Great, as concertmaster and Kapellmeister respectively. Well-known writers were frequent guests in the Reichardt household. In 1783, when Louise was four, her mother passed away.
Louise taught herself to play the piano, harp, lute and guitar, and she likewise trained her voice on her own, said to have a warm, full sound. Her father did not allow her to perform in public, except in church or in private circles. In 1800, four of her own songs were included in a collection of her father's songs.
In 1791 the family moved to the Giebichenstein estate near Halle, which was called a 'haven of Romanticism'. There Louise met Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, the Schlegel brothers, Clemens Brentano, Achim and Bettina von Arnim and other writers and musicians of the time; Goethe with his wife Christiane, and Mozart's widow Constanze, were also long-staying guests at the estate. Her friendship with some of them continued afterwards: Louise later set twelve songs to poems by Achim von Arnim.
In 1794 her father was dismissed, without pension rights, from his position as court Kapellmeister; he was pardoned only some years later. In 1801 a stepbrother of Louise's drowned while ice-skating. She found support and comfort in composing, setting poems by Tieck, von Arnim and Brentano to music in a folk-like manner. Singing together with her siblings — a full sister and three step- and five half-siblings — mattered greatly to her, as did their upbringing and education, for which she later also took on financial responsibility.
Louise's fiancé, Friedrich Eschen, died in a mountaineering accident before their wedding. Her next fiancé, the painter Franz Gareis, passed away in 1803 during an educational trip to Italy. In 1806, during the Napoleonic wars, her father's house was devastated, and the family found temporary shelter with relatives in Berlin and Halle; after returning to the hastily repaired family estate, Louise struggled with a shortage of money.
After this, Louise devoted herself to her pupils in Hamburg, and towards the end of her life she became deeply religious, compiling two books of sacred songs.
In 1809, against her father's wishes — he considered it improper — Louise moved to Hamburg, where the family had relatives and close friends, intending to become a music teacher. She first lived in the house of the banker Jerome Sillem, and later with his mother, Marie Louise Sillem. House concerts were held regularly in the great hall of the Sillems' town house on Grosse Reichenstrasse, in which Louise took part herself — Handel's oratorios, for instance, were performed there. Her circle of friends in Hamburg included the family of Amalie Sieveking, the painter Philipp Otto Runge, the bookseller Friedrich Christoph Perthes, and the poet and journalist Matthias Claudius.
In Hamburg, Louise studied singing with Clasing, taught music and composed; living there from 1809 to 1826, she wrote most of her songs. She depended neither on noble patrons nor on help from her family.
In Hamburg, Louise opened a music school for women and also founded the first women's choir: a choral society (Gesangsverein) in 1816 and a Singakademie in 1819. She sought to make the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel known to the Hamburg public, and took part in public performances together with her pupils — Handel's Messiah, for example, was performed at the Michaeliskirche in 1818.
She helped the choir rehearse for concerts, conducting the rehearsals herself, but the attitudes of the time meant she was never allowed to conduct in public; even so, she left a clear mark on Hamburg's musical life through her compositions, her teaching and her unofficial conducting work. She also translated Latin works by Hasse and Graun into German. Her earnings were good at first, but for religious reasons Louise lived modestly, spending her income on her own projects and on helping those in need; over time, as her health declined and competition grew, her situation worsened.
Marie Louise Sillem left Louise a monthly allowance in her will, to give her a dignified old age in another household. Louise Reichardt died on 17 November 1826; on 23 November she was buried at the Johanniskirchhof. The funeral address was given by Johann Heinrich Mutzenbecher, deacon of St Petri. Her pupils sang two chorales at the funeral that she had composed shortly before.
Even in the nineteenth century, Louise Reichardt's life and music continued to draw attention: by 1858 a first biography of her, together with a collection of her writings, had already been published, and a second, revised edition followed in 1865. Among twentieth-century scholars, Nancy B. Reich studied her work most closely. In Hamburg-Bahrenfeld there is a Reichardtstrasse, named in 1929 after Johann Friedrich Reichardt and extended in 2001–2002 to honour Louise Caroline Reichardt herself.
Louise Reichardt composed more than ninety songs and choral pieces. She wrote in an accessible, folk-like style, with memorable melodies and simple piano accompaniments, which made her music popular. Some of her sacred pieces are written for women's choir with piano — for example, the Sechs geistliche Lieder, for a four-part treble choir (SSAA).
She was also known for what were called 'romantic songs', a genre based on poetic texts; one example is the collection XII Deutsche und italiänische romantische Gesänge (Berlin, 1806).
Among her collections is Zwoelf Gesänge mit Begleitung des Piano-Forte, Op. 3 (Hamburg, 1811), dedicated to Louise Sillem, and an untitled-opus collection of 1820 dedicated to her sister Friederike Reichardt. Some songs set poems by Novalis, such as Sehnsucht nach dem Vaterlande from the Op. 4 collection (Hamburg, 1819), while others set different poetic texts, such as the song Kriegslied des Mays.
The site presents her music through 34 editions for voice and piano: eight of them are rated intermediate, twenty-three upper intermediate, and three advanced. A good place to start with her music is the songs Wenn ich ihn nur habe, Wohl dem Mann and Die Veilchen.