Ignaz Lachner (1807 – 1895)
Concertino for Horn, Bassoon and Orchestra, Op. 43
First Edition
Ignaz Lachner was born on 17 September 1807 in Rain am Lech, Upper Bavaria. His father, Anton Lachner, was organist at the Catholic parish church in Rain and taught him piano, organ, violin and viola from an early age. At 16 he moved to Munich, where he played violin at the Isartor Theatre. In 1824 his brother Franz brought him to Vienna, where he became organist at the Protestant church and soon joined Franz Schubert's circle of friends. In 1825 he was appointed second Kapellmeister at the Vienna Court Opera.
In 1831 Lachner moved to Stuttgart as court music director. There he composed some of his best-known works, including the opera Die Regenbrüder to a libretto by Eduard Mörike. In 1842 he answered a call to Munich as second Kapellmeister of the Court Opera, and in 1853 he went to Hamburg as first Kapellmeister of the Stadttheater. After five years he took up a post as court Kapellmeister at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm, but returned to Germany in 1861 as principal conductor in Frankfurt am Main, where he remained until his retirement in 1875. In 1884 he moved to Hanover to live with his younger son Karl, and died there on 25 February 1895.
The Concertino for Horn, Bassoon and Orchestra, Op. 43 survives in a copyist's manuscript dated 1908, held by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Judging by its musical style and opus number, the work was probably written in the years before 1850. The autograph score is lost. Another copy, in the Prague Conservatory, notes that the piece was composed for the brothers Neukirchner. Both were natives of Bohemia: Václav Neukirchner (1805–1889) was a bassoonist and František Neukirchner a horn player in the Stuttgart court orchestra. This copy differs from the Washington copy in both the solo part and the tutti.
Orchestral parts: strings 6/5/4/3/3, winds, timpani, solo parts