Double Reed 70 cover - British Double Reed Society

Milde has a face!
Ludwig Milde (1849–1913) wrote
arguably the most important and popular
etude books used by bassoonists around
the world today. His 50 Concert Studies
(Op.26) and 25 Studies in Scales and
Chords (Op.24) have been staples of the
pedagogical repertoire for the better part
of a century – and are likely to remain so.
I have long regarded many of Milde’s
50 Concert Studies as worthy of public
performance for bassoon alone, but their
complex harmonies had suggested to
me that they might also be effective as
romantic concert pieces if provided with
suitable piano accompaniments. Because
of a curious three-bar rest appearing in
study No.49, I began a search in
2003 to find out if Milde had written
accompaniments for them. But my
preliminary research came up empty. I
did find that some accompaniments had
been written by other musicians for a few
of these studies, and eventually that one
man, Rainer Schottstädt of Kassel,
Germany wrote and self-published
accompaniments for all fifty. By the time I
discovered those accompaniments, I had
already begun the arduous task of writing
my own, while teaching bassoon at
Indiana University during my 2003-04
sabbatical from the Chicago Symphony. 1
David McGill’s dedication to Milde’s Concert Studies helped shape him, like so many others, as a player, becoming
Principal Bassoon of several top North American orchestras. Now also a rescpected author (Sound in Motion pub.
Indiana University Press), he has been trying against the odds to discover the man himself.
Ludwig Milde (c. 1880), courtesy of the
Prague Conservatory of Music
After examining the few accompaniments
I could find (one for No.7, one for No.13,
and the Schottstädt) I was determined to
go ahead with this mammoth undertaking
because of my own strongly held musical
ideas about Milde’s great studies.
In June of 2004, at the Glickman-Popkin
Bassoon Camp in Little Switzerland,
North Carolina, I taught a class that
concerned itself solely with Milde’s
Concert Studies. The class opened with a
recitation of the few facts about Milde’s
life that I had been able to find on the
Internet. This took about two minutes: I
had, by that point, only found two articles
that essentially mirrored each other, both
having appeared in IDRS publications.
Each contained only one short paragraph
about Mr. Milde and they differed in only
a few details. I then went on to speak
about and play the first seven of his
Concert Studies with my newly written
accompaniments. 2 During that class I
asked, by a show of hands, how many of
the eighty or so bassoonists present had
gone through all or significant portions of
the 50 Concert Studies. All but three of
them raised their hands, and one of those
three was only twelve years of age!
Clearly Milde had exercised great
influence on the bassoonists of all ages
gathered in that room.
My curiosity about this important man of
music continued to grow as I wrote more
accompaniments. Once I had finished the
first twenty-five in November of 2006,
I decided I would do all I could to
humanise this disembodied name on the
cover of an etude book. Hoping that
more information had been discovered,
I renewed my Internet search but came
up with little new information. And I
was also on a mission to find a photo of
this man.
One of the short articles I did manage to
find on-line was in German. It accurately,
and sadly, assessed Milde’s current status:
‘Ludwig Milde – Prague composer born
April 30, 1849 – is known today by
bassoonists only as a term.’ When I read
this I needed nothing more to spur me on
to greater efforts to gather information. As
Gerald Corey wrote in his article for the
IDRS (Ludwig Milde – About the Bassoon,
a Genius): “Many assume vaguely that
[Milde] was German and just a teacher.”
How wrong it is to do so.
A Life Not Chronicled
Here are the few bare-boned facts of
his existence that I have been able to
unearth:
Ludwig Milde was born April 30, 1849 in
Prague. He began studying the bassoon
at the age of twelve. From 1861 to
1867 he studied bassoon at the Prague
Conservatory with Voijte v
k Gross who
taught there for nearly forty years (and
had also taught in Bucharest, Romania
from time to time). Milde was
undoubtedly a model student. Through
contact with Ales v
Kan v
ka, a Deputy
Director of the Prague Conservatory, I
received Ludwig Milde’s grade reports (in
German) from 1864, 1865 and 1867.
None of the wind students listed on those
pages (clarinettists, bassoonists and all of
the brasses) live up to the level of grades
Milde achieved in courses as diverse as
French, Harmony, Religion, German,
Chorus, Maths and Geography. In every
instance Milde receives either an E for
Excellent or ‘ad E’ for Excellent-Plus (‘ad’
being short for Additionszeichen or
‘plus-sign’). Others did receive those high
grades in a few subjects but they also
received a 1 or a 2, which are obviously
lower grades. There is not a sing grade for
Milde lower than an E. His graduation
report states:
Herr Ludwig Milde, 20 years old [sic],
born in Prague/[student] from the years
1861–1867 with unflagging diligence:
In Instrument – Bassoon/Excellent
In Harmony and Counterpoint/Excellent
In Religion/Laudable
In Literature/Excellent
In French/Laudable
Has hereby matriculated.
Double Reed News 85 Winter 2008 21