Julius Rietz

August Wilhelm Julius Rietz (1812–1877) was a German conductor, composer, and music educator. He was born in Berlin on 28 December 1812 into a musical family: his father was the violist and chamber musician Johann Friedrich Rietz, and his elder brother was the violinist Eduard Rietz.

Rietz received his first music lessons from his brother, then studied cello with Bernhard Romberg and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter. Through Eduard Rietz’s friendship with Felix Mendelssohn, Rietz was supported by Mendelssohn after Eduard’s early death, and in 1834 he became Mendelssohn’s assistant as Kapellmeister at the Düsseldorf Opera. A year later he succeeded Mendelssohn in that post, and in 1836 he became Generalmusikdirektor.

During his Düsseldorf years Rietz composed a Symphony in G minor, extensive theatre music, and several overtures; one of them, “Hero and Leander”, was performed in 1841 by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Mendelssohn. In 1847 he moved to Leipzig, where he led the Singing Academy and the opera theatre orchestra, and from 1848 conducted the Gewandhaus Orchestra (until 1860, with an interruption in 1855). He also taught composition at the Leipzig Conservatory; among his students were Waldemar Bargiel, Ernst Rudorff, Friedrich Hegar, and Salomon Jadassohn. In 1859 Leipzig University awarded him an honorary doctorate.

In 1860 Rietz was appointed court Kapellmeister at the Saxon royal court in Dresden, and in 1874 he became Generalmusikdirektor of the kingdom. His output included concert overtures (including a Concert Overture in A major, Op. 7, and an overture to a vaudeville, Op. 18), four operas (“Der Korsar” (1850), “Georg Neumark und die Gambe” (1859), “Jery und Bätely”, and “Das Mädchen aus der Fremde” (1839)), incidental music for dramas, symphonies, a setting of Schiller’s “Dithyrambe”, masses, psalms, motets, chorales, religious duets, male choruses, and many piano songs. He also wrote concertos for cello (two), violin, clarinet, and an oboe Konzertstück, as well as chamber and instrumental works such as a string quartet, violin sonata, flute sonata, and piano sonatas.

Rietz also prepared the first volume for publication of a collected edition of George Frideric Handel’s works, later continued by Friedrich Chrysander. He received the Order of Albrecht and Sweden’s Order of the Polar Star. Rietz died in Dresden on 12 September 1877 and was buried at Trinity Cemetery.

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