Georg Goltermann

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Georg Goltermann should not be confused with Julius Goltermann (1825-1876), the cellist teacher of David Popper.

Georg Goltermann (August 19, 1824, Hannover – December 29, 1898, Frankfurt am Main) was a German cellist and composer.

[edit] Life

Goltermann's father was an organist and so he got an early introduction in music. He received cello lessons from Joseph Menter in München and was noted there for his compositional talents.

In 1852, after briefly touring Europe as a solo cellist, he became music director in Würzburg. In 1853 he accepted an offer to become deputy music director of the municipal theater Stadttheater in Frankfurt am Main, where he was promoted to Kapellmeister (Main Director) in 1874.

[edit] Works

Goltermann wrote five cello concerti, the most famous of which is the fourth concerto. This concerto is considered the "student's concerto" because it is the easiest of his five concerti, and it is studied fairly widely. His music is rarely if ever performed in professional concerts and is deemed to lack the musicality of true concerti. Instead his concerti are studied by students to learn technique and get a basic understanding of the concerto.

(added 17/03/2007 by WLG) His first concerto in A minor was once in every cellist's repertoire especially up to the 1920s. The slow movement "Cantilena" was often performed as a separate solo. There exists a very early recording of this solo by Pablo Casals. Much of his other cello work is of a higher quality than that suggested by the author of the previous paragraph. It certainly merits revival.