August Wilhelm Bach

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August Wilhelm Bach (born October 4, 1796 in Berlin ; † April 15, 1869 there ) was a German composer , organist and music teacher.

Live and act

August Wilhelm Bach was not related to the family of Johann Sebastian Bach . His father Gottfried Bach, organist at the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Berlin , was his first music teacher, and he accompanied him in his church services. After attending grammar school around 1813, he worked as a private music teacher in a noble household outside Berlin. After his father's death in 1814, he returned to Berlin because he was hoping to succeed his father at the Trinity Church, but then got the organist position at the Gertrauden Church in Berlin. He continued his musical education with Carl Friedrich Zelter ( counterpoint and fugue ) and Ludwig Berger ( piano ), later with Carl Wilhelm Henning in the violin . In 1815 he became a member of the Berlin Singakademie and in October 1816 organist at the Berlin Marienkirche . In the following years he expanded his knowledge by traveling and studying languages. From 1819 to 1820 he still had lessons from Michael Gotthard Fischer . In 1819 he was one of the first members of Berger's newly founded Younger Liedertafel .

In 1820 Bach received a call to Stettin as music director and teacher , but he refused; This process helped him to get a job as a teacher for organ playing and music theory at the royal institute for church music in Berlin, newly founded by Zelter, from 1822, which was associated with the title of music director. In 1826 he also became Commissarius in the Royal Organ Building Deputation to oversee organ building projects in Prussia. This gave him a great overview and further influence. Several copies of a short organ guide from him have been handed down, which gives an insight into the instruments and organ builders of his time. After the death of Carl Friedrich Zelter in 1832, Bach succeeded him as director of the Institute for Church Music and stayed there until the end of his life. The Royal Academy of Arts appointed him teacher and member of the Senate in 1833; there he taught music theory and composition theory in the department for musical composition. In 1845 he was awarded the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle, 4th class; In 1858 he was appointed royal professor. Bach died in Berlin in April 1869 at the age of 72 and was buried in the St. Marien and St. Nikolai Cemetery I in the Prenzlauer Berg district .

meaning

Bach was one of the most influential personalities in Berlin's musical life in the second third of the 19th century, as a teacher and also as a recognized organ virtuoso, organ expert and organ appraiser. Since 1832 he has also had many well-known musicians from the thriving royal seat as pupils, including Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Julius Stern , Otto Nicolai and Karl August Haupt . On his initiative, the Akademie der Künste dealt with the discrepancy between the concert pitch and the organ pitch with the aim of finding a solution. As an organist, he was particularly committed to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. His own compositions, on the other hand, can claim less interest. In his choral and instrumental works and in his organ pieces, he tried to combine a sober academic rigor with the current taste of sweet poetry. Here he can be seen as a representative of the so-called Berlin academics. In his organ compositions, too, he does not get beyond an epigonal tonal language that is indebted to the older tradition. His most extensive work, the oratorio Bonifacius, the German Apostle , was rightly described by a contemporary critic as a “mishmash of opera and church” (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik No. 14, 1841). On the other hand, his two chorale books and his three-part collection The Practical Organist , published around 1830, had a long-lasting success that reached far beyond his death.

Works

  • Own vocal compositions
    • "Dem Unendlichen", ode for bass solo and mixed choir with orchestra based on a text by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , manuscript, first performed in 1832
    • “Bonifacius, the German Apostle”, oratorio in three parts for solos, mixed choir and orchestra based on a text by August Kahlert , manuscript, first performed in 1837
    • "The 100th Psalm" Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt "" for male choir and orchestra, published by Trautwein, Berlin 1840, first performed in 1841
    • Numerous cantatas, sacred and secular choral works and chants
  • Vocal musical arrangements
    • “Choral book for the hymn book for use in worship for Protestant parishes”, published by Trautwein, Berlin 1830
    • "Choral book, containing the most common melodies, with short and easy interludes", published by Trautwein, Berlin 1834
  • Instrumental music
    • "Organ pieces of various kinds", three booklets, published by Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1823
    • “The practical organist”, in three parts, was published by Trautwein, Berlin around 1830
    • “Organ pieces for the concert, as an appendix to the practical organist”, published by Trautwein, Berlin without the year
    • Numerous preludes, postludes, fantasies, voluntaries and fugues for organ
    • Some piano, chamber music and orchestral compositions
  • Textbook
    • "Brief Elementary Singing Teaching", Berlin 1858

Literature (selection)

  • Arnold Schering: History of the oratorio (= small handbooks of the history of music by genre. No. 3). Leipzig 1911, pp. 427 and 457; Reprint Hildesheim / Wiesbaden 1966.
  • M. Schipke: History of the Academic Institute for Church Music in Berlin . In: Festschrift to celebrate the centenary of the State Institute for Church Music in Berlin. Berlin 1922, pp. 15-23.
  • Rudolf Elvers:  Bach, August Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 491 ( digitized version ).
  • S. Jeans: August Wilhelm Bach and his textbook for organ . In: C. Wolff (Ed.): Organ, organ music and organ playing. Festschrift Michael Schneider. Kassel 1985, pp. 65-77.
  • C. Albrecht: August Wilhelm Bach (1796–1869). A Berlin organist, organologist and organ teacher of the 19th century . Berlin 1988.
  • Andreas Sieling: August Wilhelm Bach (1796–1869). Church music and seminar music teacher training in Prussia in the second third of the 19th century (= Berlin Music Studies. No. 7). Studio-Verlag, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-89564-016-6 (also dissertation at the Technical University of Berlin 1994); Excerpt from: Yearbook of the Prussian Cultural Foundation 1995, pp. 185–208 (with estate directory).
  • Ingeborg Allihn, Wilhelm Poeschel (Ed.): How with full choirs. 500 years of church music in Berlin's historic center . Ortus Musikverlag 2010, ISBN 978-3-937788-18-0 .

Web links

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  1. ↑ Dieter Siebenkäs, Thomas-M. Langner:  Bach, August Wilhelm. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 1 (Aagard - Baez). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 1999, ISBN 3-7618-1111-X  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  2. ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie, 2nd Edition, Volume 2, McMillan Publishers, London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3 .
  3. ^ Hermann Josef Busch , Matthias Geuting: Lexicon of the organ. 2nd Edition. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2008, ISBN 978-3-89007-508-2 .
personal data
SURNAME Bach, August Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, organist and music teacher of the Romantic era
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1869
Place of death Berlin