Siegfried Alkan

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Siegfried Alkan with his mother Johanna in an 1899 photograph

Siegfried Alkan (May 30, 1858 – December 24, 1941) was a German composer.

Alkan was born in Dillingen/Saar (Germany), the son of Johannes Alkan and Johanna Bonn in a family of merchants and musicians. Through his mother he was a distant cousin of the composers Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Fanny Hensel and Giacomo Meyerbeer. It is unknown how, or if, he was related to the French composer and pianist Charles-Valentin Alkan, but he was like the latter a scion of Jewish families from the Moselle region.

In 1938 the octogenarian Siegfried Alkan became a victim of the "Kristallnacht". His instruments were destroyed and he himself was beaten by Nazi hordes. In his last years he had to wear the infamous "Yellow Star".

Many works of Siegfried Alkan seem to be lost. Still known are for example the compositions "Gruß an die Saar" (Opus 32), "O wüsstest du's" (Opus 39), "Neues Saarlied" (Opus 91) and "Ur-Großmütterchen" (Opus 80), which was very popular in the time after World War I.