Carl Voigt (musician)

Memory of Carl Voigt on a collective grave plaque in the Althamburg Memorial Cemetery at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg

Carl Voigt (born March 29, 1808 in Hamburg ; † February 6, 1879 there ) was a German musician , the founder and first conductor of the Hamburg Cäcilienverein .

Life

family

His parents were the businessman Carl Friedrich Voigt and his wife Anna Catharina, b. de la Camp. He himself married Auguste Elisabeth Georg in 1837. The marriage had seven daughters and one son.

Years of apprenticeship

Voigt should have studied theology at his parents' request , but instead turned to music. From 1825 to 1831 he studied piano with Johann Jacob Behrens and Guntrum and composition with Johann Clasing and FW Grund . Then he went to the violinist Moritz Hauptmann in Kassel for two years . This was followed by further piano studies with Johann Nepomuk Schelble , the founder and conductor of the Cäcilien Choir in Frankfurt am Main . When Schelble became seriously ill in 1836, Voigt took over the management of the Cecilia Choir. He was followed there briefly by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Ferdinand Hiller , before Ferdinand Ries succeeded Schelble in the autumn of 1837 . When Ries died unexpectedly in January 1838, Voigt provisionally took over the direction of the choir a second time until he returned to Hamburg in 1840.

Hamburg Cecilia Association

In Hamburg, he soon turned to intense the A cappella - choir music to which he had come to appreciate with the St. Cecilia Choir in Frankfurt and was still largely unknown in Hamburg. As early as October 1840 he began with the first exercises, initially with eight participants from his circle of family and friends. The circle of contributors grew, and on June 28, 1843 he officially founded the Hamburg Cäcilien-Verein, initially with 25 members. The first public concert took place at the end of 1843. Further concerts followed at irregular intervals, once or twice a year. The number of club members grew slowly at first, to 36 in 1845 and 37 ten years later, but then very considerably. In 1860 there were already 78 members and in 1870 there were 127. This growth was a consequence and concomitant of the increasing popularity of the choir and the intensification of its concert program: In the years from 1843 to 1858, in addition to a few private, a total of only 18 public concerts were given. but then the choir gave three subscription concerts every winter .

After 37 years, Voigt conducted a concert by the Cäcilienverein Choir for the last time on April 13, 1877. His successor was Julius Spengel , who led the choir publicly for the first time on November 9, 1877.

literature

• Josef Sittard: History of music and concerts in Hamburg from the 14th century to the present. AC Reher, Altona and Leipzig, 1890, pp. 339–356 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
• Hans Schröder, AH Kellinghusen: Lexicon of the Hamburg writers up to the present. Seventh volume. Association for Hamburg History, Hamburg, 1875–1879, p. 508 ( limited preview in Google book search).