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Otto Dresel

Geisenheim, Germany, 1826 - 1890, Beverly, Massachusetts

BiographyDresel, Otto (20 Dec. 1826-26 July 1890), pianist, teacher, and composer, was born in Geisenheim, Germany, the son of Johann Dietrich Dresel and Luise Ephardt, liberal and literate parents who raised him in an intellectual environment. Dresel studied with Moritz Hauptmann at Leipzig; he also had the friendship and guidance of Ferdinand Hiller in Cologne and of Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig. He visited New York City in 1848, played in a series of concerts there in 1849, and was the first pianist in the chamber music concerts begun by Theodore Eisfeld in 1851. After a brief return to Germany in 1851, Dresel settled in Boston in 1852 and for more than fifteen years held his place as one of that city's most prominent pianists. In his later years he made several visits to Germany to keep abreast of new activities in its musical centers.

A man of impetuous temperament and unswerving faith in his own musical convictions, Dresel was thought to be too outspoken and often contradictory in his declarations about music. Contemporary criticisms indicate that he was an uneven pianist. An obituary in The Folio (Sept. 1890) describes Dresel as a pianist who lacked sufficient technique "to cope successfully with the works of the more modern writers for the piano, but nevertheless his playing was imbued with fine musical feeling, and was remarkably good in point of delivery, to the extent of his peculiar ability." But William Foster Apthorp, the renowned Boston music critic, greatly admired Dresel's playing:

As a pianist, Dresel was one of the most inspiring players I ever listened to. . . . For true genius at white heat, yet controlled by the finest artistic sense of measure, I have never heard his best playing surpassed by any of the greatest pianists. . . . He had an incisiveness and brilliancy of tone, a vigour of accent that carried everything before them. . . . Like Gottschalk [Louis Moreau Gottschalk], he had the peculiar power of producing a brilliant, ringing quality of tone even in the softest pianissimos. (pp. 267-68)

As a pianist Dresel set a high value on the emotional aspects of music, both the performer's personal emotions and the emotional temperament of the composer; however, that did not mean a sentimental interpretation, nor did he allow himself great rhythmic freedom. Although the romantic side of his nature was as fully developed as that of any of his contemporaries, counterposing that romanticism was an equally well-developed spirit of classicism. He revered Bach and would hardly allow that anything worthwhile had been written since Beethoven. A conservative, cultured musician with high musical standards, he did much to broaden the taste of American audiences, especially those in Boston. His recitals always included fine classical music (according to Robert Franz, Dresel played "Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven under classics: Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Schumann under more modern composers"). Dresel also gave Boston audiences chamber music concerts similar to those of Eisfeld in New York, and he introduced his audiences to the songs of Robert Franz by performing them, with singer August Kreismann, at his concerts and by including them on his choral programs.

Perhaps Dresel's greatest legacy was his work in promoting the music of Bach and Handel. In his day the American public knew the Handel oratorios but seemed uninterested in hearing more of his work. There was almost no public interest in Bach. Dresel's efforts to promote Bach and Handel in America were at first largely ignored. It may have been that his vehement, often tactless tirades against the music of Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Raff, Rubinstein, Goldmark, Brahms, and others of the newer schools made the public distrust him. But in Dresel's later years his Bach Club became an important and beneficial influence. This group of twenty-four to thirty handpicked singers met weekly at Dresel's home during the winter months to practice choral works by Bach and Handel. Dresel trained and directed the group and also played the piano accompaniment; one of Boston's many fine organists provided further tonal accompaniment on the small pipe organ built into Dresel's music room. The high-strung, impetuous Dresel proved to be a most tactful choral director. Apthorp writes that at rehearsals he coaxed his chorus to overcome difficulties and that singers felt they sang their very best with him. Friends and music lovers invited to one of "the rare and charming little soirées" of the Bach Club became enthralled with the music of Bach and Handel, and their infectious enthusiasm created more interest in the works of these two composers.

Dresel's own compositions are now largely forgotten. Shortly after he settled in Boston, his setting of Tennyson's Sweet and Low won first prize in a song contest. He made a musical setting (soprano and orchestra) of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Lost Child to commemorate the fiftieth birthday of the great naturalist Louis Agassiz. He also composed Army Hymn, set for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, to a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes. His other compositions include a piano trio, a quartet for piano and strings, some piano music, and one small book of songs, mostly reprints of songs that had originally appeared years earlier, published in 1892. Dresel collaborated with his longtime friend Robert Franz in writing accompaniments for vocal scores by Bach and Handel. His piano transcriptions--for example, the six Two-Part Songs by Mendelssohn arranged for solo piano--are equal to the best of his nineteenth-century contemporaries. His four-hand arrangements of Beethoven's symphonies are among the best ever published. He also arranged and published four sets of Handel arias. He died at his summer home in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Bibliography

Dwight's Journal of Music gives a good survey of Dresel's activities. A chapter titled "Two Modern Classicists" in William F. Apthorp, Musicians and Music-Lovers (1894; repr. 1972), is devoted to Dresel and his friend Robert Franz. The American Art Journal, 6 Sept. 1890, reproduces testimonial letters by Robert Franz and Sebastian Schlesinger.

John Gillespie

Online Resources

"With Hancock Union, Liberty!" by Otto Dresel
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mussm:@field(AUTHOR+@band(Dresel,+Otto.+))
From the Library of Congress's American Memory website. A viewable score of Dresel's song "With Hancock Union, Liberty!"

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Citation:
John Gillespie. "Dresel, Otto";
http://www.anb.org/articles/18/18-00323.html;
American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
Access Date: Fri Aug 09 2013 14:24:22 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)
Copyright © 2000 American Council of Learned Societies.

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Last Updated8/7/24

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