Wilhelm Popp

From Wind Repertory Project
Wilhelm Popp

Biography

Wilhelm Popp (29 April 1829, Coburg, Ger. – 25 June 1902, Hamburg, Ger.) was a German flute and piano virtuoso. He also used the Frenchized name Guillaume Popp and the pen name Henry Alberti.

Wilhelm Popp received his flutist training from Caspar Kummer and Louis Drouet ; there is no information about his pianistic training. According to tradition, he must also have been a piano virtuoso, as he performed with various orchestras and was court pianist and flautist at the "Ducal Saxon Court Theater in Coburg-Gotha". After falling out with the theater manager in Coburg, he moved to Hamburg in 1867. There he was principal flutist in the Philharmonic Orchestra.

During his lifetime Popp was a well-known and valued composer. In D. Ehrlich's The History of the Flute (1920), his works were described as "very well known in the musical world". Beyond this, he can hardly be found in any encyclopedia and only a small part of his oeuvre, which contains almost 600 compositions, has been reissued to this day. Most of his oeuvre includes pieces for flute and piano, and in keeping with the trend of the time he has written countless arrangements and fantasies based on well-known melodies and operatic paraphrases of every level of difficulty. His own compositions are very interesting, including countless melodic character pieces and his six sonatinas or his concertos. His music consists mostly of light music and teaching pieces. At different levels of difficulty, both the flute novice and the flute virtuoso enjoy this literature.


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