Edmund Kretschmer

Carl Franz Edmund Kretschmer (31 August 1830 – 13 September 1908) was a German organist and composer who worked for the Dresden Court and composed several operas and masses.

Born in Ostritz, Lausitz, the son of the rector of the municipal school, Kretschmer received first musical instruction from his father. From 1846, he studied in Dresden, composition with Ernst Julius Otto and organ with Johann Gottlieb Schneider. He first worked as a teacher, and in 1854 became the organist of the Katholische Hofkirche.

In 1863, he was appointed Hoforganist (Court Organist) and instructor of the Kapellknabeninstitut, and in 1880 also choral conductor of the Hofkirche. He composed around 80 stage works and several orchestral works, including four operas and four masses. The King awarded him the title of Hofkirchen-Componist.

His composition Die Geisterschlacht won a prize at the first Deutsches Sängerfest in 1865. He received a prize for a mass at an international competition in Brussels in 1868. He then composed his first opera, Die Folkunger, from a libretto by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal.

Kretschmer died in 1908 and was buried in the Alter Katholischer Friedhof in Dresden. He was an honorary citizen of his hometown, where a street is named after him.