Josepha showerk

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Josepha Duschk, 1796

Josepha Duschk b. Hambacher , Czech: Josefína Dušková ( March 6, 1754 in Prague - January 8, 1824 ibid) was one of the most famous classical music singers of her time, also a pianist and composer . She sang for a number of heads of state in Vienna, Dresden and Warsaw. Both Mozart and Beethoven composed arias for her.

life and work

Showerk was the daughter of the Prague pharmacist Adalbert Hambacher and his wife Dominica Columbia Weiser, who came from Salzburg. Her father's pharmacy was in the house at the white unicorn . Her mother was the second-born daughter of the Salzburg merchant Ignatz Anton von Weiser , who was Salzburg's mayor from 1772 to 1775. Josepha was a student of the then already famous pianist and composer František Xaver Dušek (1731–1799), who had settled in Prague in 1770 as a piano teacher and whom she married on October 21, 1776. In 1777 the couple visited Salzburg and got to know the Mozart family there. At that time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the great dramatic aria of Andromeda with the recitative Ah, lo previdi - Ah, t'invola agl'occhi miei (KV 272), which he later dedicated to his sister-in-law Aloisia Weber . In Salzburg she performed on August 15, 1777 as part of a private concert in the Tanzmeisterhaus in Leopold Mozart's residence. A close friendship developed between the young Mozart and the Prague couple.

The showerk was valued as a witty and pretty singer. She was a charming lady and had relatively liberal views for her time. The director of the Bertramka memorial called her “a very emancipated woman”. She sang opera roles in Prague, but was best known as a concert singer . As such, she performed with brilliant success at concerts and academies in Vienna and Berlin, in Dresden, Leipzig, Weimar and Warsaw. Judging by the difficulties inherent in the pieces of music written for her, the showerk must have had both a virtuoso vocal technique and a large range. As Dlabacz reports, she is said to have had an unusual skill in drawing. She composed a number of songs and piano pieces. Her virtuoso singing technique earned her the applause of Emperor Joseph II and the Polish King Stanislaus II August Poniatowski . In Dresden she was even given the distinction of being painted life-size - as a sign of the elector's enthusiasm.

The Duschks owned a comfortable city apartment on Prague's Kohlmarkt and a spacious country house, the Vila Bertramka in Smíchov , which they bought in 1784. The marriage remained childless.

Mozart

The Villa Bertramka in Prague

In 1781 she had the aria Ah, lo previdi - Ah, t'invola agl'occhi miei sent to Vienna. In 1786 Mozart accompanied her as a pianist in a private concert at the Viennese court. In 1787, when the composer came to Prague for the premiere of his Don Giovanni , he was relegated to the Duschk family. He spent a carefree time in their city apartment on Kohlmarkt and in their idyllic country house, the Vila Bertramka near Prague, and completed his opera there. The fama or rumors say that Mozart composed a second concert aria for her out of gratitude for the singer - after the premiere of his new opera on October 29, 1787 in the Prague Estates Theater (Stavovské divadlo) : Bella mia fiamma - Resta, o cara ( KV 528). The composition took place on November 3rd, 1787. There is, however, another account of the origin of this aria, which is said to come from Mozart's son Karl Thomas :

“Petranka [sic] is well known as the villa in which Mozart enjoyed his stay in Prague with his musical friends, the Duschks, and where he composed a number of numbers of his 'Don Juan' [ Don Giovanni ]. On the little hill near the villa there is a pavilion, in which one day Frau Duschk simply locked up the great Mozart after taking care of pen, ink and music paper. She informed him that he would only regain his freedom after he had composed the aria with the words bella mia fiamma addio , which he had long promised her. Mozart did as he was commanded. But he avenged himself for the evil deed that the showerk had done to him by including a series of difficult to sing passages in the aria. He also threatened his despotic girlfriend that he would immediately destroy the aria that had just been completed if she did not succeed in interpreting this a prima vista flawlessly. "

Bernard Wilson comments on this story as follows: “The genesis of the aria seems to have a certain credibility, because the words Quest 'affano, questo passo è terribile per me are composed in a terrible tangle of chromatic sequences, brilliantly set to give the singer a feeling for To put intonation and its power of interpretation to the test. Apparently Mme. Duschk mastered this passo terribile , because the original manuscript bears her name - in Mozart's handwriting. "

A year and a half later, the Duschk sang the scene Ch'io mi scordi di te - Non temer, amato ebne ( KV 505) in the Leipzig Gewandhaus and could then be heard together with Mozart on April 13 and 14, 1789 in Dresden. She is said to have sung the terrible aria in both places.

It is possible that Mozart completed his last opera, La clemenza di Tito , in September 1791 in the Vila Bertramka.

After Mozart's death, the couple took his children in with them and they lived in the Vila Bertramka from then on .

Beethoven

The artist couple was also on friendly terms with Ludwig van Beethoven . When the composer was in Prague in 1796, he composed a large dramatic concert aria for the Duschk: Ah perfido , op. 65. However, she was unable to take on the premiere due to other obligations, which is why Countess Josephine von Clary and Aldringen sang on November 27, 1796 who was overwhelmed with the difficult work. Nevertheless, Beethoven later dedicated the work to her. Josepha Duschk, however, still interpreted the concert aria in Prague in 1796 and later in Leipzig. In 1808 Beethoven accepted the work into the program of his academy at the Theater an der Wien and sung it by Josephine Killitschky , who was only 17 at the time , and who, like Countess Clary, failed in the vocal challenge of the aria.

Retirement

After the death of her husband in 1799, Josephauchek largely withdrew from the public. Performances in 1801 and 1804 are still guaranteed, in the latter case she sang for the benefit of the widows and orphans pension scheme of the Prague Tonkünstler Society. Among the audience at this concert, which took place on April 1, 1804, an ode was distributed which begins:

"She appeared once again for the festival, at the altar that is sacred to music."

In the end, she had to sell Vila Bertramka and moved several times to smaller and smaller apartments in Prague. When she died she was completely impoverished.

Trivia

The singer's personal life was riddled with rumors and accusations. It was said that her early wealth - which, by the way, she is said to have wasted quickly - was due to a dubious relationship with a Bohemian magnate, Count Christian Philipp von Clam-Gallas , even before her wedding. The count is said to have paid her an annual allowance of 900 guilders after the relationship ended and also contributed to the acquisition of Vila Bertramka. This relationship was also the reason for Leopold Mozart to warn his son about the singer, which he deliberately ignored.

When she stayed in Weimar in 1788 and sang concerts successfully, her behavior caused offense. Friedrich von Schiller described her as "presumptuous, yes cheeky" and the duchess mother Anna Amalia wrote that she looked "quite like a resigned maîtresse". Maynard Solomon suggested a relationship between Mozart and the Duschk, but there is no evidence for this.

Commemoration

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the world premiere of Don Giovanni, they also remembered the Duschk couple and restored the Vila Bertramka in Prague. It can be visited today and concerts are held there.

In 1997, the city of Salzburg named a street in Leopoldskron and Gneis in memory of the soprano. Josepha-Duschk-Straße leads from Sandor-Vegh-Straße, named after Sándor Végh , the long-time director of the Salzburg Camerata , towards Konstanze-Weber-Gasse, named after Mozart's wife Constanze .

literature

Web links

Hints

  • The year of birth of the artist is sometimes given as 1753 or 1756. The more frequent naming, also used by the DNB, is used here. There are also divergences regarding the birthday, in some cases March 7th is given. Kutsch / Riemens name March 6th as the day of birth. Wien Geschichte Wiki writes that she was baptized on March 6, 1754.
  • The artist is sometimes confused with the Anglo-Italian soprano Sophia Corri-Dussek (1775–1847), who was married to the Bohemian composer Jan Ladislav Dussek, who was born on February 12, 1760 in Tschaslau and on March 20, 1812 in Saint -Germain-en-Laye passed away.
  • The German National Library has assigned two GND numbers to the singer and composer: 1068086327 and 135729572. The first entry mentions the name Franziska Josefauchek with the same years of birth and death.

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c Josefina Dusková (Josepha Duschk) was born 250 years ago . Radio Praha, February 21, 2004; accessed on August 24, 2016.
  2. ^ Otto Ebel: Women Composers . 1902, pp. 47 and 48, archive.org .
  3. ↑ Published in 1856 in the Berliner Musik-Zeitung Echo , Vol. 4, pp. 198–199. The magazine attributed this story to Mozart's son and since of Mozart's two sons only Karl Thomas was alive at the time, this statement is attributed to him. The English translation can be found in Peter Kivy : Child Mozart as an Aesthetic Symbol , Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 28, No. 2. (April-June 1967), pp. 249-258. A back translation into German is printed here,
  4. ^ Bernard E. Wilson: Review of New Edition of Complete Works, Ser. II: Stage Works, Work Group 7: Arias, Scenes, Ensembles, and Choirs with Orchestra, Volume 4 . In Notes, 2nd Ser. Vol. 30, No. 4. (June 1974), pp. 856-857.
  5. ↑ Famous interpreters of this aria in the 20th and 21st centuries include Cecilia Bartoli , Anett Fritsch , Barbara Frittoli , Margaret Price , Kiri Te Kanawa , Olena Tokar , Dawn Upshaw and Edith Wiens .
  6. ↑ Bodo Schwalm: Graves on my travels. Volume 2: History (s) and Memory . P. 58.
  7. ↑ With this aria, the singer Elsa Jülich, persecuted for racial reasons, said goodbye to Berlin in 1935, before she emigrated to Palestine with her husband Michael Taube . For sources see the article on Elsa Jülich.
  8. ^ Maynard Solomon : Mozart: A Life. New York: HarperCollins 1995, Ch. 28.
  9. ^ Bertramka - memorial to WA Mozart and the Dušek couple . Prague.eu, the official tourist portal of the city of Prague; accessed on August 23, 2016.
  10. ↑ Vila Bertramka - Mozartova obec v České republice . Vila Bertramka; accessed on August 23, 2016.
  11. ↑ Showerk, Franz Xaver in the German biography
personal data
SURNAME Showerk, Josepha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duschck, Josephine; Showerck, Josefa; Dušek, Josepha; Dušek, Josefa; Dušek, Josephine; Dussek, Josefa; Dussek Josepha; Dussek Josephine; Dušková, Josepha; Dušková, Josefa; Dušková, Josephine; Hambacher, Josephine (maiden name); Hambacher, Josefa (former name); Hambacher, Josepha (former name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1754
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1824
Place of death Prague