WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln - Eilenberg: Petersburger Schlittenfahrt, Waltzes & Polkas (2010)

Having given us the rousing marches, sprightly polkas, and yearning waltzes of Benjamin Bilse, the West German RSO in Cologne, under its conductor Christian Simonis, now treats us to the foot-tapping music of Richard Eilenberg. Born in Leipzig in 1848, Eilenberg would be complete forgotten today if it weren't for his Petersburg Sleigh Ride and The Mill in the Black Forest. But this once extremely popular composer wrote much more than that: he was a trailblazer in salon and entertainment music, and his character pieces remained well-known favorites for decades. As a young man he studied piano and composition and had written a concert overture by the age of sixteen. In 1873 he was appointed music director and conductor in Stettin (now Sczeczin in Poland), where he launched his voluminous career as a composer. Eilenberg wrote marches and dances, salon music and character pieces, a ballet called The Rose of Shiras and the operettas Comtesse Cliquot, King Midas, Marietta, and The Great Prince. Some 350 compositions have come down to us from his pen, including ten fantasies, suites, and many other scintillating pieces of light music that suited the taste of their day and were disseminated in myriad arrangements. Our »program« opens with the dizzying galop Cürassier Attque Populär and ends with a piece that has delighted listeners ever since: even André Rieu could not resist including Eilenberg's Petersburg Sleigh Ride in his repertoire.