Vinzenz Lachner

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Vinzenz Lachner (born 18 July 1811 in Rain am Lech; died 22 January 1893 in Karlsruhe) was a significant German composer and conductor.

He was the youngest brother of Franz Lachner, also a composer and conductor and well known as a close friend of Schubert. As a composer Vinzenz was essentially self-taught. He was first educated by his father Anton Lachner, the municipal organist, and after Anton's death was schooled in Augsburg, where he subsequently scratched a living teaching music until his brother Franz arranged for him to become conductor and house musician for Earl Mycielski of Coscevitz in the Grand Duchy of Poznań. In 1831 he moved to Vienna to continue his musical training, becoming assistant conductor at the Court Opera and organist at a Protestant Church (though he himself was Catholic). In 1836 he became court conductor at Mannheim in succession to Franz, where he was so highly valued that his contract was renewed and extended whenever he received offers from other musical centres. In all he remained there for 37 years, during which Mannheim had the reputation of performing the largest repertoire of operas of any city in Germany. Nevertheless Lachner travelled and conducted widely, as far afield as London.

Lachner encouraged a number of prominent younger musicians, notably Max Bruch and Hermann Levi. However, instinctively conservative in his tastes, he stood out publicly against the cult of Wagner, but the formation of a Wagner Association in Mannheim at the beginning of the 1870s was the beginning of the end for his career. Wagner himself came to conduct in Mannheim and, having already engineered the removal of Franz Lachner from Munich, campaigned for Vinzenz (who, to his rage, had conducted Der fliegende Holländer in a mutilated version) to be retired, which was brought about in 1873. He settled afterwards in Karlsruhe, where he continued to teach. Like all the Lachner brothers, he was friendly with Brahms. He died after a number of strokes at the age of 81.

Vinzenz Lachner's compositions include symphonies, overtures, festive marches, works for wind orchestra; a Mass in D minor, a setting of the 100th Psalm and other choral works; incidental music to Schiller’s Turandot; a tone poem entitled Lagerleben; a Piano Quartet, String Trio, two String Quartets, 42 Variations on the C major Scale for piano or string quartet; Deutsche Tanzweisen for cello and piano; a set of Ländler for piano duet (dedicated to Brahms); and numerous songs of which the cycle Scherz im Ernst und Ernst im Scherz was popular during his lifetime. Few of his works have been revived or reprinted, though a recording of the string quartets issued in 2005 reveals a minor master of that genre.