Charles Martin Loeffler

Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935) German-born American composer.

Not from Alsace

Throughout his career Loeffler claimed to have been born in Mulhouse, Alsace (i.e. to be basically a Frenchman), and almost all music encyclopedias give this fabricated information. In his lifetime articles were published dissecting his 'typically Alsatian' temperament! In fact he was German - indeed a Berliner on both sides of his family, born Martin Karl Löffler in Schoneburg near Berlin. He turned against Germany when the Prussian authorities imprisoned and apparently tortured his father, an agricultural chemist and author of Republican ideals. Loeffler was only about 12 when this happened; the father spent the rest of his life in prison, dying of a stroke before he was due to be released. Before this the family had moved around a good deal, including a period in Alsace, and then to Smiela near Kiev, while Loeffler was still a small child. Later they lived in Hungary and Switzerland.

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