Fritz Lissauer

Fritz Lissauer was born 20 October 1874 in Berlin (Germany). He attended the Gymnasium in Berlin and received his first music lessons under Otto Schmidt. Later he studied both law and music, his teachers included Max Reger in Meiningen, Hermann Durra and Otto Taubmann in Berlin. Fritz Lissauer first made a living with music, but had to switch to the lawyer profession due to inflation problems. In 1933 he was banned from the lawyer profession by the Nazi regime because of his Jewish faith. He then returned back to his musical career and focused on composing. Fritz Lissauer died 7 March 1937 in Berlin.

Fritz Lissauer mainly composed vocal and chamber music. Among his compositions are over 200 songs on words by Goethe, Hebbel, Storm, Droste-Hülshoff and many others. There are also a few compositions for voices and orchestra and he also wrote several violin, cello and flute sonatas. His output lacks instrumental works for orchestra like symphonies or concertos as well as operas. Just in his last years Fritz Lissauer pointed his interest to these genres. Therefore the Violin concerto has a special position in the oeuvre of Fritz Lissauer. The Violin concerto op.100 was composed in 1922/23. It was written in the traditional form of fast - slow - fast with the movements I. Sehr lebhaft - II. Sehr gehalten - III. Ziemlich bewegt. The concerto was never performed as far as I know. The original manuscript is archived at the National Library of Isreal.