August Röckel

Carl August Röckel (1 December 1814 – 18 June 1876) was an Austrian-born German composer and conductor. He was a friend of Richard Wagner and active in the German revolutions of 1848–1849.

Biography Röckel was born in Graz. His father, Joseph August Röckel, was a tenor, choir director and theatre entrepreneur who sang the role of Florestan at the premiere of the second version of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio in 1806. With his father, he experienced theatrical life in Vienna, Paris and London. He acted in Paris as assistant to Gioachino Rossini at the Théâtre des Italiens, and was on a later visit to Paris an eyewitness to the Paris July Revolution of 1830.

After he completed his musical training with his uncle, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (who was married to his father's sister Elisabeth Röckel), he was music director in Bamberg starting in 1838. In 1843 he came to Dresden, where he was at the Court Theatre, where Richard Wagner was music director. He was assistant conductor ("2. Musikdirektor") to Wagner for five years until 1848. Influenced by the music of Wagner, he renounced a performance of his own opera, which he had sent to Dresden. Wagner became a close friend, especially during the time of 1849 Dresden uprising, and the two would go on long walks together.

Röckel was an ardent republican; he became friends with the likes of Mikhail Bakunin and was the editor of the revolutionary journal in Dresden, ,

While in custody, he received many letters from Wagner, in which Wagner made insightful statements on his opera cycle , which give valuable background to the revolutionary and socially critical nature of Wagner's magnum opus. During detention Röckel wrote his book The Saxon Revolt and the Waldheim Penitentiary. In 1862 in Biebrich, he once more met Wagner, who at that time was living there and writing . However Wagner later quarrelled with Röckel when, in the late 1860s, he believed that the latter had been gossiping about his relationship with Cosima von Bülow. He died after a long illness at his son's house in Budapest.