Felix Otto Dessoff

Felix Otto Dessoff (14 January 1835 – 28 October 1892) was a German conductor and composer.

Biography

Dessoff was born in Leipzig and entered the conservatory there where he studied composition, piano and conducting with some of the foremost teachers of the day, including Ignaz Moscheles for piano and Moritz Hauptmann and Julius Rietz for composition. It was as a conductor that he primarily established his reputation. By age nineteen, he was theater director in Düsseldorf and a mere five years later was offered a guest position with the Vienna Court Opera. He left his conducting post in Vienna in 1875.^[1] In Vienna, he became professor at the Vienna Conservatory. He also befriended Johannes Brahms and later was to premiere several of that composer's orchestral works, including the Symphony No. 1 in 1876. Although he had composed some works during the 1850s and early 1860s, he gave up composing when his career as a conductor blossomed. He later made a name for himself as the director of the Frankfurt Opera House.

His close friendship with Brahms can be seen in an exchange of letters between the two in 1878 when Dessoff wished to dedicate what is probably his best known work, his String Quartet in F, Op. 7. Though it met with success in its premiere, Dessoff was still not sure it was worth publishing and sent the score to Brahms asking for his candid opinion and offering to dedicate to him. Brahms wrote back praising the work and said, "...you would do me a great honor by writing my name over the quartet title—if need be then, we'll take the blows together should the public find it not to their liking." Much gratified, Dessoff wrote back in a free and bantering way of the sort Brahms himself often penned, "...you will be relieved to see your name on the title page of the quartet preserved for posterity. When people have forgotten your German Requiem, people will then say, 'Brahms? Oh yes, he's the one to whom Dessoff's Op. 7 is dedicated!'"

Dessoff also composed a string quintet for 2 violins, viola and 2 cellos, Op. 10, several Lieder (songs) and a choral book. He died in Frankfurt in 1892. His daughter, Margarete Dessoff, founded the Dessoff Choirs when she stayed on in New York City during a family visit there.^[2]

References

1. ^ Bozarth, George S. (1990). Brahms Studies: Analytical and Historical Perspectives : Papers Delivered at the International Brahms Conference, Washington, DC, 5–8 May 1983 at Google Books. Oxford University Press. page 314. ISBN 0193119226.
2. ^ "History of the Dessoff Choirs". The Dessoff Choirs. http://www.dessoff.org/new/history/. Retrieved 2011-01-30. 

External links

• Dessoff Choirs at the Bach Cantatas Website
• Free scores by Felix Otto Dessoff at the International Music Score Library Project

Persondata
Name	Dessoff, Felix Otto
Alternative names
Short description	German conductor and composer
Date of birth	14 January 1835
Place of birth	Leipzig, Germany
Date of death	28 October 1892
Place of death	Frankfurt, Germany