ANATOL VON ROESSEL (BUDAPEST, AUSTRIA-HUNGARY,
NOVEMBER 4, 1877 – OBER-HAMBACH, TODAY HEPPENHEIM (BERGSTRAßE), OCTOBER 30,
1967)
His father was Austrian, his
mother Russian, and one of his grandmothers was Alsatian. His father was also a
concert pianist and from 1877 to 1878 he was a student of Franz Liszt, who was
also the godfather of Anatol von Roessel. Soon after Anatol’s birth, the family
moved to Odessa, where the father had become the Imperial Russian Music
Director. Roessel was raised Russian Orthodox. He grew up trilingual, in
addition to Russian, German and Ukrainian, French was added at high school,
which he soon mastered perfectly. After graduating from high school in Odessa,
he gave concerts in southern Russia to get the funds to study at the Leipzig
Conservatory. In 1905 he was invited several times to record a total of 25
pieces for the Welte-Mignon reproduction piano. In Leipzig he studied with the
famous pianist Alfred Reisenauer . He completed his studies at the end of 1904
and won the Mozart Prize there. Reisenauer appointed him the only assistant at
his master school, where he worked until Reisenauer’s early death in 1907. He
apparently went to Erfurt shortly thereafter. According to press reports, he
performed for the first time on November 14, 1907 at the Erfurt Musikverein. In
1913 the “Erfurter Allgemeineanzeiger” recognized his 25th concert. From 1910
to 1914 he was head of the training class at the Erfurt “Akademie der Tonkunst”
at Gartenstraße 52. He also undertook concert tours through Germany, France,
Sweden and Russia, where he achieved significant pianistic successes. It is
conceivable that in March 1913, when he was saying farewell with the director
of the Erfurt Conservatory, the music teacher Walter Hansmann (1875-1963), in
the hall of the “Europäischer Hof” on Meister-Eckehart-Strasse, he entered
private life withdrew. He obviously did not have to take part in the First
World War. In any case, from May to November 1914 he worked as a builder and
had a villa built in Erfurt’s best residential area, which he largely designed
himself. The money for building the house at Cyriakstraße 21 apparently came
from his father-in-law. His name was not only Müller, but he was also the
miller at the Kartäusermühle (Erfurt) . The proceeds from the sale of the mill
to Adolf Filß probably made it possible for his daughter Anna, who had married
Anatol, to finance it. In any case, in 1925 he sold the house on Cyriakstrasse
to the pianist and officer’s widow von Dosky, left Erfurt and went to Paris.
Roessel was a Russian citizen but became stateless in Russia after the October
Revolution. In Paris he worked as a music critic. He wrote for the
international music press, including the magazine L’art musical and was a
correspondent for the Neue Magazin für Musik, he was also vice-president of the
Critique étrangère en France. Divorced in the meantime, he returned to Germany
in July 1939 to settle private matters. Here he also experienced the outbreak
of war in September 1939. In 1940 he went back to Paris for a short time, but
soon withdrew to the Bavarian countryside, deprived of his livelihood. As a
stateless person, his status in Nazi Germany was not easy. The internationally
renowned musician and critic found refuge in the Landschulheim Neubeuern near
Rosenheim, where he worked as a piano teacher and concertmaster. In 1941, the
National Socialists closed the boarding school as “politically unreliable”. At
the invitation of the Odenwald School he was able to move to Ober-Hambach in
the same year to also work as a piano teacher there. Roessel worked in the
Odenwald School until old age, his livelihood was secured by the school community.
TRACKLIST
195 CHOPIN – Etude, Op. 25, No.
7, c#
234 RACHMANINOFF – “Fantasy Pieces”,
Op. 3, No. 2, c# Prelude
303 BRAHMS – Rhapsody, Op. 79,
No. 1, b
304 LISZT – Hungarian Rhapsody
No. 5, e “Héroide-Elégiaque”
305 MOSZKOWSKI – GODOWSKY – Spanish
Dance, Op. 21, No. 3, f#
307 TCHAIKOVSKY – Tender
Reproaches, Op. 72, No. 3, c#
309 J. STRAUSS, JR. – GOLDSTEIN
– (Thousan d & One Nights, Op. 346)
503 REBIKOV – Chanson triste
(Song of Sadness) Op. 6, No. 2
507 TCHAIKOVSKY – Berceuse (Cradle
Song) Op. 72, No. 2, Ab
1040 TCHAIKOVSKY – Theme and
Variations, Op. 19, No. 6, F
1045 SCHUMANN-LISZT – Widmung
(Dedication) Op. 25, No. 1
1046 GLAZOUNOV – Gavotte, Op.
49, No. 3, D
1265 GRIEG – Norwegian Dance,
Op. 35, No. 2, A
