Friedrich Theodor Fröhlich

Friedrich Theodor Fröhlich

Friedrich Theodor Fröhlich (20 February 1803 in Brugg, Aargau, Switzerland – 16 October 1836 in Aarau, Aargau, Switzerland) was a Swiss early-Romantic composer.

Biography

Friedrich Theodor Fröhlich was the sixth child of a Swiss family living in Brugg. His older brother Abraham Emanuel Fröhlich was a priest, writer and politican. After completing the gymnasium in Zürich, he started studying jurisprudence in Basel and later in Berlin.

In 1824 he returned to Aarau due to sickness. There he took lessons in musical compositions under Michael Traugott Pfeiffer. In 1826–1828 he got a grant from the counsil of Aargau to go to Berlin and taking musical lessons from Carl Friedrich Zelter and Bernhard Klein. In Berlin he met Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

In 1830 he returned back to Switzerland again. Although Fröhlich had minor success in Berlin, he never got recognition and support for his art in his home Aarau. He struggled financially and eventually marriage trouble lead to depression. On 16th of october in 1836 he made suicide by jumping into the river Aare. His work consists of over 700 compositions, where more than 300 works were for piano and more than 300 for the choir.

Orchestral works

• Ouverture for Dyhrns Konradin (1827)
• Symphony in A-major (1828)
• Ouverture B-major (1832)
• Ouverture for a passion f-minor (1835)

Chamber music

• Pastorale and Rondo for oboe and piano (1824)
• Three Sonatas for violin and piano (1826)
• Four Stringquartets (1826–32)
• Sonata for cell and piano in f-minor (1830)
• Quintet for piano, 2 cello and 2 horns (1833)
• Quartet for piano, violine, viola and cello (1835)
• Fantasy for violine and piano (1832)
• Fuge for Stringquartet (1828)

Piano works

• Sonata A-major, op. 11 (1831)
• Six Elegys, op. 15 (1833)
• Waltzes and Ländler
• Piano pieces for four-hands

Vocal music

• Jesus, der Kinderfreund; cantata (1834)
• Der 137. Psalm (1827)
• Canticum Simeonis (24. Dezember 1829)
• Totenfeier (1829)
• Stabat mater (dt.) (1829)
• Weihnachtskantate (1830)
• Gesang der Geister über den Wassern (Goethe) (1831)
• Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt (Goethe) (1831)
• Passionskantate (1831)
• Das Unser Vater (1832)
• Litanei (1832)
• Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen (1833)
• Preis der Liebe (1834)
• 2. Mass (1835)
• Der 1. Psalm (1836)
• Domine, Jesu Christe (1836)
• Various pieces and Lieder for men, women and children choir

Bibliography

• Heinrich Nidecker: Theodor Fröhlich und seine Thurgauer Bekanntschaften. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch, Bd. 32, 1957, pp. 101–118. (online version)
• Edgar Refardt: Theodor Fröhlich, ein Schweizer Musiker der Romantik. Amerbach-Verlag, Basel 1947.
• Pierre Sarbach: Friedrich Theodor Fröhlich. Winterthur 1984.
• Michael Schneider: Fröhlich, (Friedrich) Theodor. In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG). 2nd ed., Personenteil, Band 7, Kassel Basel 2002, pp. 193–195