Program Notes: Castro Valley Adult School Chamber Orchestra  March 16, 2008

Concerto pour Deux Flutes et Orchestra en re mineur

ALBERT FRANZ DOPPLER (1821-1883)

Allegro Maestoso
Andante
Allegro

Franz and Karl Doppler (1821-1883, 1825-1900)

Franz and Karl Doppler were both born in Lemberg (the modern Lvov, in Ukraine), where their Austrian father, a composer and oboist, was an Imperial regimental musician. The brothers were taught the flute by their father and drew public notice for their rapid progress on the instrument. After temporary stays in Warsaw and Bucharest, the family settled in Budapest in 1838 where both brothers found positions as flutists and assumed parallel careers as composers and performers.

The brothers toured the musical centers of Europe performing their compositions of virtuoso fantasias and paraphrases for two flutes to great acclaim.  The Doppler's compositions, sometimes written together, reflect the tastes of the period. They make great use of Hungarian themes, whether in Variations sur un air hongrois or Fantaisie sur des motifs hongrois, or in the famous Fantaisie pastorale hongroise.  Transcriptions and potpourris on melodies from operas were highly prized by the public, forms to which Liszt, Glinka and many other composers contributed.

In an excerpt of his review of an 1855 Viennese concert by the Dopplers, critic Eduard Hanslick writes: "The flute playing of the Doppler brothers is among the most distinguished that we can remember in the field of instrumental virtuosity".

The two brothers eventually settled in the city of Pest in Hungary, where they became the flute section of the German Theater and later of the [Hungarian] National Theater. Franz later returned to Vienna, to become Professor of Flute at the Vienna Conservatory and conductor (and resident ballet composer) of the Vienna Opera, while his brother in became director  of the National Theater and in 1865 became Kappellmeister in Stuttgart for the next 33 years. Although Franz wrote 7 operas and 15 ballets (which were quite popular in their time), he was a brilliant orchestrator. He is best known for his orchestral versions of six of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, which might otherwise be known only as piano pieces