Alfred Heinrich Loreti

1870–1944

Segoviana and Other Solo Works

Very little is known about Alfred Heinrich (or Alfredo Enrico) Loreti. The sparse information contained in Josef Zuth’s Handbuch der Laute und Gitarre (1926) constitutes almost everything we know about the musician’s life. Since he appears in the list of subscribers to the volume, these details presumably derive from Loreti himself:

LORETI, A l f r e d  H e i n r i c h, born 22 March 1870 in Rome, studied music theory at the royal “Academia di S. Cecilia” and is presently active as a teacher of mandolin and guitar in Zurich. His compositions reach the opus number 263 […]

Loreti must have moved from Rome to Zurich at a young age, at the latest by 1889, because at the end of 1929 the journal Der Gitarrefreund published the following report:

L o r e t i  E v e n i n g. The concert organized by the Zurich Mandolin and Guitar Club “Orfeo” on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of its director A. H. Loreti was held in the Conservatory Hall and became a warm tribute to Loreti as composer and conductor. The programme consisted exclusively of his works and showed the tireless advocate and creator of fine mandolin and guitar music. Loreti has created over 250 works, and the pieces selected for this celebratory evening showed the master at the height of his creative powers. The participation of the Loreti Quintet, well known in Zurich for its highly polished performances, and the appearance of the young and very likeable Viennese guitar soloist Luise Walker gave the concert a particularly attractive note. Miss Walker is regarded today as the leading representative of the New German guitar school. The performances of the artist, who also played compositions by Loreti, were duly appreciated here as well. The occasion thus became a true evening of honour for Loreti, and the resounding applause must surely have shown him that his art is valued here.

Loreti died in Zurich in 1944.
It may be assumed that his total output eventually exceeded 300 works. Today, however, only a few of these can still be found in various libraries, and none is any longer available commercially. It appears that most of Loreti’s compositions were never published, even during his lifetime..
The earliest publications that can still be traced today are the Albumblätter (Album Leaves) for mandolin and guitar, published in 1917 and comprising the pieces Süßes Erinnern (Sweet Memory), Traumgesicht (Dream Vision), Die Zigeunerin (The Gypsy Woman), Liebesleid (Love’s Sorrow), and Liebesfreud (Love’s Joy). This was followed in 1918 by his four-volume Neue Schule für Gitarre oder Laute (New Method for Guitar or Lute), which also includes the little étude that had already been printed in Der Gitarrefreund in 1914 and had thereby gained a certain circulation. The Method also contains numerous duos for mandolin and guitar.
In 1923, the pieces Hoffnung – Heimweh (Hope – Longing for Home) op. 252, Bolero op. 241 and Filigrana op. 167 were published together under the title Kompositionen. The ever-strict Hans Tempel reviewed the volume in 1926:

For a composer whose opus numbers extend well into the third hundred, the first of the four pieces is a respectable achievement. With a harmonic language formed in a modest Wagnerian tradition, Loreti has created in “Hoffnung” (Hope) an expressive mood picture. […] Loreti demonstrates to players and to “composers” alike who still believe that guitar music must adhere to the harmonic language of 150 years ago that even a progressive harmonic style — still far removed from the “modern” — need not exceed the limits of technical playability. Yet the hopes one would be justified in placing in Loreti on the strength of this “Hope” are dashed by the two dance pieces contained in the same volume. The Bolero is contrived music, and the Mazurka would do credit to any collection of salon pieces.

A review whose praise for Hoffnung and Heimweh, on the one hand, and whose disappointment with the Bolero and Filigrana, on the other, is entirely understandable.
Loreti’s Reverie op. 164 is one of the many untraceable works, although it appears to have been published. All we have is another review in Der Gitarrefreund, this time by Fritz Buek from 1928:

Of this composer’s more than 200 works, the greater part appears either unpublished or privately printed, and only a few — such as Op. 252 — have been issued by Hofmeister. What has hitherto reached the public shows throughout respectable achievement and does not follow well-trodden paths, but rather pursues a progressive harmonic style. The new composition before us, a Reverie Op. 164 […] confirms once again the qualities already emphasised here. A well-invented melody is treated here in an interesting harmonic manner […]. One can only wish that this modest and gifted artist and composer might be granted further opportunity to work in this field for the guitar.

Loreti’s opus magnum among his guitar works is probably his four-movement Suite pour guitare concertante, entitled Segoviana op. 261, composed in 1925.
After the young Andrés Segovia had already been concertizing successfully for several years, particularly in Spain and Latin America, his legendary appearance in Paris on 7 April 1924 marked the breakthrough to an unprecedented international career. From that year until 1935 Segovia lived in Switzerland, first in Lausanne and later in Geneva. On 19 and 20 November 1924 he made his Zurich debut, and although no documentation survives, one may safely assume that Loreti did not miss the opportunity to hear — and perhaps meet — the Spanish virtuoso who was rapidly becoming an international sensation. The Segoviana that Loreti composed in response belongs to the steadily growing body of works dedicated to the celebrated guitarist in the years that followed, and it seems that Loreti truly gave his best here in order to impress the charismatic artist, no doubt hoping that Segovia might include the work in his repertoire.
In the section Aus unserer Bücherstube – Ankündigungen (From our book table – announcements) of the journal Zeitschrift für die Gitarre, the editor Josef Zuth presumably wrote in December 1925:

This suite, like the pieces discussed recently, makes considerable demands on the performer’s technique, yet rewards with rich and bold harmonies that always remain clearly intelligible. Together with the movement of the pieces, in which a southern pulse seems to beat, they define the composer’s distinctive character — a composer who surely must be counted among the best of our time. One may hope that his striving for formal perfection will in time receive the success it deserves.

At the beginning of 1928, the Österreichische Gitarre Zeitung also reviewed the Segoviana:

As the title suggests, the present suite is dedicated to the Spanish master Segovia. It comprises four movements (1. Prélude, 2. Danse, 3. Berceuse, 4. Finale), of which the two slow movements (Nos. 1 and 3) are particularly fine. Our concert artists will gladly turn to this work, which represents a valuable enrichment of our guitar literature, as it offers them most rewarding possibilities.

Unfortunately, despite this recommendation, concert artists apparently did not take up the work. Luise Walker may have performed the piece — or at least individual movements from it — at the Loreti evening mentioned above, and perhaps again on later occasions. The dedicatee himself, however, never performed it, as he did many other works written for him. The suite is not found among the materials in Segovia’s estate. Whether he ever actually received it therefore remains uncertain, although it seems reasonable to assume that the composer sent him a presentation copy — or, quite possibly, even played the work to him and handed it over personally. For in a letter written at the end of 1934 to the German colleague Anton Stingl, the Zurich zither player and guitarist Emil Holz wrote:

If I am correctly informed, L. Walker played something from the Segoviana, as well as Heimweh, about two years ago. These were sentimental pieces, the sort she likes to play […]. — Loreti himself is a somewhat dry and taciturn Italian, to whom the deeply serious German musical tradition is naturally foreign. As a teacher and technician on the instrument he is said to be outstanding, even according to Segovia. I know him too little personally, having heard him play the guitar only years ago. I liked his clean playing very well at the time.

Since Segoviana never found its way into Segovia’s repertoire, it fell into oblivion after Loreti’s death together with its composer and never entered the general guitar repertoire.

Andreas Grün

The year of Loreti’s death was established by Christoph Jäggin in the course of his research project CH-Gitarre – Was es in Schweizer Sammlungen zu entdecken gibt (CH-Guitar – Discoveries in Swiss Collections) at the Zurich City Archives. His catalogue provides a list of Loreti’s known works.
Four of the five historical magazine texts, as well as Holz’s letter to Stingl, were kindly supplied to me by Andreas Stevens, whose tireless scholarly curiosity and warm collegiality are simply remarkable.

Hoffnung – Heimweh (YouTube)
Segoviana (YouTube)

Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR.