Alois Taux

Alois Taux, linocut by M. Bernisius, 1847

Alois Taux (born October 5, 1817 in Baumgarten , Frankenstein district , province of Silesia , † April 17, 1861 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian conductor and composer. He was the first director of the Dommusikverein and Mozarteum in Salzburg and founder of the Salzburg Liedertafel .

Life

Taux received his first musical lessons in his home town and in neighboring Kamenz . From 1834 he studied at the Prague Conservatory, in 1837 he became a violinist in the Graz Opera Orchestra and later a horn player. In 1839 he began his career as a conductor, first as second conductor in the Linz theater and in the same year as director of the kk theater in Salzburg . In 1841 he was appointed director of the newly founded Cathedral Music Association and Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1847 he founded the Salzburg Liedertafel , of which he was director until his death. In addition, from 1858 he was choirmaster of the Salzburg Singing Academy.

Taux initiated the first Mozart festivals in Salzburg in 1842, 1852 and 1856, and organized a large song table festival in 1856. His Mozart memorial concerts were institutionalized by the International Mozarteum Foundation .

In 1850 Taux married the singer Anna Freiin Dubsky von Wittenau, a relative of Constanze Mozart .

He died unexpectedly during a rehearsal for the Liedertafel in the spring of 1861. His grave of honor is at the Salzburg municipal cemetery .

Honors

The Tauxgasse in the Salzburg district of Gneis is named after Alois Taux .

In his birthplace Baumgarten (now Braszowice ), music lovers organized a music festival for the first time on October 17 and 18, 2015 with the title “I. Festiwal Muzyczny im. Aloisa Tauxa ”, which took place in the St. Laurentius Church in Braszowice and in the Hedwig Church in Ząbkowice Śląskie .

Works

As a composer, Taux mainly created everyday music that was successful within his local sphere of activity. Among his more than 50 works are nine masses and six overtures as well as magic antics, inter-act music, cantatas, dances and choral works.

His church works, his choral compositions, and finally his stage works of all kinds [...] show him consistently as an eclectic who not only moves along the paths of the German classics and romantics, but also as a busy and sensitive theater conductor the abundance of melodies and the panache of the Italian Opera works of this time [...] affect you. Among his musical and dramatic works, the festival play "The Rose from Untersberg", which has a homely note and is rooted in the Untersberg saga, stands out. Otherwise he prefers [...] eerie ghost legends and material from the German past.

literature

• Adolf Haslinger and Peter Mittermayr (eds.): Salzburger Kulturlexikon , Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 2001, p. 498.
• Erich Schenk : Alois Taux in: 80 years of Salzburg song table , ed. vd Salzburger Liedertafel, Salzburg 1927, pp. 11–17.
• Constantin Schneider: History of Music in Salzburg , Verlag R. Kiesel, Salzburg 1935, pp. 165–167.

Web links

• Biogram on music dictionary, accessed October 7, 2015
• Alois Taux at Salzburgwiki

Individual evidence

1. ^ Constantin Schneider: History of Music in Salzburg, Verlag R. Kiesel, Salzburg 1935, p. 166f.