Carl Loewe

Carl Loewe was born in Löbejün, studied in Halle, toured through Germany in his mid-20s and then secured an appointment as professor and Kantor at the Gymnasium and seminary in Stettin (formerly in Prussia, now in Poland), where he remained for the rest of his life. A contemporary of Schubert, he was a central figure in Stettin's musical life, and was a prolific composer of songs and oratorio to cater for the increasing musical appetite of the late-19th-century German bourgeoisie.

The composer (Johann Gottfried) Carl Loewe is familiar to music lovers of the 20th and 21st centuries above all as the writer of important ballad scores, of which Edward, Erlkonig, Herr Oluf, and Archibald Douglas are well-known examples. His songs Die Uhr or Heinrich der Vogler were or are popular hits, especially in a bygone heyday of salon music and educated bourgeois culture. Loewe wrote more than 400 songs. But the same Carl Loewe also write six operas, two symphonies and two piano concertos as well as a total of 17 sacred and secular oratorios, all of which have fallen into oblivion. With the present oratorio, the Arcix Vocalisten, led by Thomas Gropper, are vehemently opposed to oblivion.