Oscar Fetrás

Oscar Fetrás
Birth name Oscar Fetrás
Born February 16, 1854(1854-02-16)
Died January 10, 1931(1931-01-10) (aged 76)
Genres Classical
Occupations Composer, musician
Instruments Piano

Oscar Fetrás (16 February 1854, Hamburg – 10 January 1931, Hamburg) was a German composer of popular dance music, military marches, piano pieces and arrangements.

He had over 200 compositions to his name. His best known work is his waltz "Mondnacht auf der Alster" Op. 60 which is still immensely popular to the present day.

Contents

Biography

He was born Otto Kaufmann Faster. Early in his career he worked for Ferdinand Laeisz, founder of the Flying P-Liner. Once he became widely regarded as being on the same level as the revered Viennese waltz kings, he departed to conduct his own orchestra.

At the age of 26 his compositions attracted the attention of a Hamburg publisher and he adopted the name Fetrás. He was essentially of German descent and his musical talent came from his father, who was from Prague.

He soon rose to the position of conductor of the Uhlenhorster Färhaus which was the most famous restaurant with ballrooms in Hamburg for which he composed his second most famous, but now forgotten work, Uhlenhorster Kinder. He was regarded as the most talented light music composer that Northern Germany ever produced and right from the start modelled his own composing on that of his idol, Johann Strauss Jr.

It is interesting to note that it might have been Franz von Blon who was at that time the conductor of the Stadttheater Orchestra who introduced Moonlight on the Alster at the inaugural concert for the ball season in 1888. It was a sensation anyway and earned Fetrás the title of 'The Hamburg Waltz King'. Soon he was invited to tour Germany, Austria and France with his orchestra. He became personally acquainted with Johann Strauss. In 1904 he won a prize for his composition Frühlingsluft and later he wrote the excellent potpourri Reiche Mädchen (a reworking of Johann Strauss’s 1897 operetta Der Göttin der Vernunft. The complete Die Göttin der Vernunft operetta has been released (2011) by Naxos Records, whilst the Reiche Mädchen Potpourri has been recorded by Marco Polo on their two CD production of Johann Strauss operetta potpourris. Fetrás remained well known and respected and though definitely a second rank composer in the Viennese style, he produced some 300 works.

Legacy

In 1943, the Uhlenhorster Färhaus was destroyed by Allied bombing and with it the original score of his most famous work Moonlight on the Alster Op.60. The waltzes and music of Fetrás appear to have disappeared from the mainstream repertoire since WWII. The reason for this is primarily that many outlets of music publishers and music parts libraries which issued his material were destroyed during the bombing of Hamburg in World War II leaving currently no publisher actively issuing his material as well as destroying significant amounts of historic musical material. A current project aims to draw his compositions together via the IMSLP and make them more widely available once again.

In Hamburg-Rahlstedt the street Fetrasweg is named after him.

Works

Sources and references

External links