In my home country and in my small village, people associate a lot with the name von Flotow, but the German Opera was certainly not one of them. The last administrator of the local noble estate lived only a few hundred meters away, just a glance through the window. A famous composer of classical music came from this noble house. More precisely, of German Romanticism.
Friedrich von Flotow, in collaboration with Friedrich Wilhelm Riese, created the libretti for the operas Alessandro Stradella (first performed in 1844) and Martha oder Der Markt zu Richmond (first performed in 1847). From 1828 he studied composition with Anton Reicha and piano with Johann Peter Pixis at the Conservatoire de Paris. There he became friends with Charles Gounod and Jacques Offenbach, among others. So, with the help of Roon, it was only a matter of time before Martha or the Last Rose would also run straight into my arms with this also musical family history.
Of course, it is not the small northern German villages between Hamburg and Berlin where these operas were premiered, but it shows how small this world sometimes is when lines of thought or musical connection with Mecklenburg roots arise. Roon showed me compositions with von Flotow’s name on them and I gratefully accepted. The classical path was laid anew in me here by Andreas. The path is now paved and exciting musical journeys await me.
Today I may take all friends of these compositions again on the pleasant musical journey. It is only illustrated what I have already enjoyed with pleasure.
