August Wilhelm Ambros

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
August Wilhelm Ambros

August Wilhelm Ambros (born November 11, 1816 in Mauth near Pilsen , † June 28, 1876 in Vienna ) was an Austrian music historian , music critic and composer .

Life

His mother Charlotte Caroline Ambros b. Kiesewetter (* 1785), an accomplished pianist, was the sister of the Viennese musicologist Raphael Georg Kiesewetter . His father was Ludwig Ambros (1780-1858).

Although his father had planned for him a legal career (doctorate in 1839, senior public prosecutor's substitute at the Prague Regional Court - responsible for censoring the Prague press in 1848 - and at the Ministry of Justice in Vienna), both music and art were his true profession. Even in his youth, Ambros received musical support from his mother. During his high school in Prague he learned both painting and music practically and theoretically.

As a member ( Flamin ) of the Prague League of David , which he co-founded , he found his musical and journalistic role model in Robert Schumann , with whom he also corresponded from 1845 to 1850. His compositions were also influenced by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's style. He opposed with numerous friends from the educated middle class of Prague, among whom u. a. Eduard Hanslick ("Renatus") belonged, against the musical conservatism prevailing at the time in Prague.

Ambros was known to his contemporaries, in addition to his work as a composer, as a music writer and critic. With his first work The Limits of Music and Poetry (1856), conceived as an answer to Eduard Hanslick's work Vom Musikalisch-Schönen , he contrasted his aesthetic concept of “sounding form” with his concept of “soulful form” . In his core statement, he was so close to Hanslick's approach that Ambros was able to record a journalistic success with this work, but was unable to make a conceptually new contribution to the music-aesthetic discussion of the second half of the 19th century.

This book and works such as Culturhistorische Bilder from contemporary musical life (1860) and Bunte Blätter (1872/1874) as well as a large number of newspaper publications earned him his reputation as one of the most important music critics of his time.

After a lecture received with interest by the professional world as part of the annual meeting of the German Tonkünstlerbund in 1859 ("Music as a cultural-historical moment in history") the Breslau publishing house Leuckart (Constantin Sander) commissioned him with the work of a comprehensive music history. The result was his three volume History of Music. The first volume dealt with the music of non-European cultures and the music of antiquity (with a special focus on Greek music), the second volume with music from the 4th to the early 15th century (with a focus on Gregorian chant , Guido von Arezzo , Antoine Busnoys and Guillaume Du Fay ) and the third volume with the music of the Franco-Flemish school (focus on Josquin Desprez ).

Due to his training, Ambros was more familiar than many of his colleagues with the methodology and concepts of the historical school of law and the history of art of his time, which was reflected in the conception of the work. This stands in a field of tension between a historical-philosophical conception of Hegelian provenance and a strongly historically influenced approach that seeks to follow Ranke's postulate of "self-extinguishing" one's own historical view.

While Ambros was working on the “History of Music”, he was released from his offices in Prague and Vienna for several months of the year (including as professor of music history at the Prague Conservatory and as Crown Prince Rudolf's teacher of art history) to look for materials in various European archives to be able to collect.

Ambros died before he could complete the fourth volume, which was to encompass the age of Palestrina . The work was published in 1878 by Otto Kade and Hugo Leichtentritt . A fifth volume with musical examples for the third volume in the history of music appeared in 1882 under the direction of Kades. Wilhelm Langhans continued the work in "chronological order", but without being able to reach Ambros level.

In Vienna- Liesing (23rd district) the Ambrosweg has been named in his honor since 1954 .

He had been married to Theresia Ambros since June 3, 1850, who, due to the merits of her deceased husband, was raised to the Austrian knighthood in 1878 with her eight children, including the painter Rafael Ambros .

Awards

  • Order of the Iron Crown III. Class. His widow Theresia Ambros and her eight children were not raised to hereditary knighthood until two years after his death in 1878.

plant

Books

  • The limits of music and poetry. A study on the aesthetics of music , Prague 1856
  • Prague Cathedral , Prague 1858
  • The Conservatory in Prague. A memorandum on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding , Prague 1858 ( digitized version)
  • Cultural-historical images from contemporary musical life , Leipzig 1860
  • History of music
    • I. The music of ancient Greece and the Orient. Wroclaw 1862.
    • II. A. The beginnings of European occidental art. B. The development of regular polyphonic singing. Wroclaw 1864.
    • III. A. The time of the Dutch. B. The music in Germany and England. C. Italian music of the 15th century. Wroclaw 1868.
    • IV. [Music in Italy from Palestrina to around 1650]. "Fragment", Leipzig 1878.
    • V. Selected clay works by the most famous masters of the 15th and 16th centuries. Edited by Otto Kade based on sheet music that was left unfinished . Leipzig 1882.
    • Name and subject register. Created by Wilhelm Bäumker . 1882.
  • Colorful leaves . Sketches and studies for friends of music and the visual arts. ( Digitized by the Digital Library of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)
    • [Vol. 1]. Leipzig 1872.
    • New episode [vol. 2]. Leipzig 1874.
    • Colorful leaves [two volumes in one; only the essays on music, ed. by Emil Vogel .] 1896.
  • Two musical legacies. Pressburg and Leipzig 1882.

items

A bibliography of the numerous essays, studies, sketches, etc. that have appeared in magazines and daily newspapers (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Leipzig; Bohemia, Prague; Abendpost, Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, etc.) is still missing; it would be of importance because, according to Ambros' self-testimony (Bunte Blätter I, VI f.), earlier journal articles and feature pages have only been incorporated into his own collections in heavily reworked form. At the moment, the University of Vienna is working on a historical-critical edition of his music essays and reviews from the years 1872 to 1876.

Compositions

Ambros wrote songs, chamber music, character pieces and sonatas for piano as well as numerous unpublished works such as the operas Libuša's Prophecy , Břetislav a Jitka , overtures to plays by Kleist , Calderón and Shakespeare , two masses, a Stabat Mater and two symphonies. He was one of Prague's most respected composers in the 1840s, but, with the exception of his overtures, was not very successful outside the city.

New edition

  • Music essays and reviews 1872–1876. Historical-critical edition , ed. by Markéta Štědronská, volume 1, 1872 and 1873, Vienna: Hollitzer 2017, ISBN 978-3-99012-337-9 (= Viennese publications on musicology , volume 45)

literature

See also

Web links

Wikisource: August Wilhelm Ambros  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ↑ Details on the editions and proof of digital copies at Wikisource . There is also a detailed table of contents
  2. ↑ A list of verifiable compositions at Wikisource
personal data
SURNAME Ambros, August Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Music historian, critic and composer
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH Mauth
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1876
Place of death Vienna