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Scan 55
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1916
8 lines. Read by computer on 6 September 2026. Printed page 27. See the scan on archive.org.
1Professor, and soon after received a call to a court concertmeistership at Dresden. This, however, his love for Joachim and for Berlin, where he had advanced sufficiently to lead the Quartets alternately with his chief, induced him for a long time to hesitate to accept, notwithstanding the very high terms offered. At length, however, he did accept it, and became (in 1877) joint concertmeister with Lauterbach at the Dresden opera, and chief teacher in the Conservatorium. He retired in 1898, after which time he only taught a few favoured pupils; he died in Dresden, May 16, 1903. Though a virtuoso of the first rank he followed in the footsteps of Joachim by sacrificing display to the finer interpretation of the music, and succeeded in infusing a new spirit into chamber-music at Dresden. He composed symphonies, quartets, sonatas, and songs, some of which have been printed. They are distinguished for earnestness, and for great beauty of form, and a quartet was performed in Dresden in the winter of 1878 which aroused quite an unusual sensation. In 1874 Rappoldi married a lady nearly as distinguished as himself, LAURA KAHRER, who was born in Vienna, Jan. 14, 1853, and whose acquaintance he made many years before at Prague. Her talent, like his, showed itself very early. On the nomination of the Empress Elisabeth she became a pupil of the Conservatorium at Vienna, under Dachs and Dessoff, from 1866 to 1869. After taking the first prize, she made a tournée to the principal towns of Germany, ending at Weimar. There she studied under Liszt, and matured that beauty of touch, precision, fire, and intelligence, which have raised her to the first rank of pianists in Germany, and which induced Herr von Bülow—no lenient critic—to praise her playing of Beethoven's op. 106 in the highest terms. She was the worthy colleague of her husband in the best concerts of Dresden. G.
3RASELIUS, ANDREAS, was born at Hahnbach near Amberg in the Upper Palatinate some time between 1562 and 1564. He was the son of a Lutheran preacher, who had studied at Wittenberg under Melanchthon, and whose original name, Rasel, Melanchthon latinised into Raselius. From 1581 to 1584 Andreas attended the then Lutheran University of Heidelberg, taking his degree as Magister Artium in the latter year. In the same year he was appointed cantor and teacher at the Gymnasium of Ratisbon, then conducted under Lutheran auspices. In his capacity as cantor he published in 1589 a Musical Instruction book with the title Hexachordum seu Quaestiones Musicae Practicae sex capitibus comprehensae, which was still in use at Ratisbon in 1664. In 1599 appeared his 'Regenspurgischer Kirchen-Contrapunkt,' which contains simple settings a 5 of 51 of the older Lutheran Psalm-tunes and chorales. The full title describes them as set so that the congregation may easily sing the chorale-tune while the trained choir provide the harmonies. The chorale-tune is in the upper part, but the harmonies are not always mere note-for-note counterpoint as in a modern hymn-tune. A few specimens of these settings are given in Schöberlein's Schatz. Other published works of Raselius are 'Teutsche Sprüche aus den Sonntäglichen Evangelia . . .,' 53 German Motets a 5 (Nuremberg, 1594), and 'Neue Teutsche Sprüche auf die . . . Fest und Aposteltage . . .,' 22 Motets a 5-9, described as composed on the 12 Modes of the Dodecachordon (Nuremberg, 1595). Besides these published works there remain in MS. several collections of Latin and German motets and magnificats by Raselius. He is also known as the author of a historical work, a chronicle of Ratisbon, originally written both in Latin and German, of which only the German edition survives. Raselius remained at Ratisbon till 1600, when he received a pressing invitation from the Elector Palatine Frederick IV. to return to Heidelberg as Hofkapellmeister. This higher post of honour he was not permitted to retain long, as death carried him off on Jan. 6, 1602. A monograph on Raselius by J. Auer of Amberg appeared as a Beilage to Eitner's Monatshefte of 1892.
5RASOUUMOWSKY,1 Andreas Kyrillovitsch, a Russian nobleman to whom Beethoven dedicated three of his greatest works, and whose name will always survive in connection with the 'Rasoumowsky Quartets' (op. 59). He was the son of Kyrill Rasum, a peasant of Lemeschi, a village in the Ukraine, who, with his elder brother, was made a Count (Graf) by the Empress Elisabeth of Russia. Andreas was born Oct. 22, 1752, served in the English and Russian navies, rose to the rank of admiral, and was Russian ambassador at Venice, Naples, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Vienna. In England his name must have been familiar, or Foote would hardly have introduced it as he has in 'The Liar' (1762). At Vienna he married, in 1788, Elisabeth Countess of Thun, one of the 'three Graces,' elder sister of the Princess Carl Lichnowsky [see vol. ii. p. 723a]; and on March 25, 1792, had his audience from the Emperor of Austria as Russian ambassador, a post which he held with short intervals for more than twenty years. He was a thorough musician, an excellent player of Haydn's quartets, in which he took second violin, not improbably studying them under Haydn himself. That, with his connection with Lichnowsky, he must have known Beethoven is obvious; but no direct trace of the acquaintance is found until May 26, 1806 (six weeks after the withdrawal of 'Fidelio'), which Beethoven—in his usual polyglot—has marked on the first page of the
71 Rasumoffsky and Rasoumoffsky are forms used by Beethoven in various dedications.
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