Saar, Louis Victor Franz

1868-

Well-known pianist, composer and teacher of piano, harmony, counterpoint and composition; born at Rotterdam. After a course in literture and music at the University of Strasburg he was a pupil of Rheinberger and Abel at the Munich Conservatory, graduating at that institution in 1889 with high honors. Saar passed one winter with Brahms in Vienna, and also resided at Berlin and Leipsic. He was engaged by Abbey and Grau from 1892 to 1895 as opera accompanist in New York; from 1896 to 1898 taught counterpoint and composition at the National Conservatory, New York, and after 1898 taught counterpoint and composition at the College of Music. He also acted as critic for the StaatsZeitung and the New York Review. In 1891 Mr. Saar was awarded the Mendelssohn prize for composition, for a piano suite and songs, and the following year he won the prize of the Wiener Tonkunstlerverem. He won, in 1903, the Kaiser prize for composition at the Sangerfest in Baltimore, his work having been chosen out of that of four hundred competitors. At present Mr. Saar is in charge of the department of harmony, counterpoint and composition at the College of Music, Cincinnati, and is a teacher and composer of international reputation. He has composed a great deal of music, including many fine choral works, with and without orchestral accompaniments; sonatas; settings of various poems; much piano-music and many songs. Deserving of special mention is his setting of Goethe's Ganymed, a solo for contralto with orchestral accompaniment. While in Vienna he published four four-part songs, under the title of Artists' Prize. His other compositions are two ballades; four klavierstück; quartet for piano and strings; a secular ode, called Battle Prayer; sonata for violin and piano; An den Tod, for six-part chorus and orchestra; many choral compositions for male voices; and several beautiful songs, of which the most popular are Little Star and Tears and Sighs.