Christian Urhan

Chr. Urhan

Christian Urhan , also Chrétien Urhan (born February 16, 1790 in Monschau near Aachen , † November 2, 1845 in Belleville ) was a German violinist , organist and composer who worked in France.

Life

Christian Urhan learned to play the violin from his father and learned other instruments such as cello, double bass, piano, organ, horn, trumpet, flute, clarinet and guitar mostly self-taught. As a child he belonged to the chamber music group of the amateur violinist and cloth industrialist Ernst Scheibler (1769–1822) from Monschau, with whom he often performed. In 1804 his “Trois Grandes Valses” for piano, which were dedicated to his patron Amalie Scheibler, was published by Nikolaus Simrock in Bonn . In the same year, the French heard Empress Joséphine his violin playing when she was in Aachen for a cure and brought him to the Paris Conservatory, where he continued his studies with Jean-François Lesueur , Pierre Rode , François-Antoine Habeneck and Rodolphe Kreutzer successfully led to the end could.

He then played in well-known Parisian chamber music groups, from 1814 in the Pierre Baillots string quartet . He was violinist in the imperial band and solo violist in the opera's orchestra and, from 1831, its concertmaster. From 1827 he was titular organist at the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church . Here he performed individual movements of his chamber music works during the mass. On January 5, 1834, he played Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata with Franz Liszt , also during a mass.

Urhan composed mainly chamber music, including quintets and sextets for three violas, cello, double bass and timpani. Numerous piano works and songs come from his pen. Urhan advocated the reuse of the then forgotten viola d'amore . He was also an advocate for the use of the violin viola, also known as Quinton ; a violin with five strings in the tuning cg-d'-a -'-e '.

Hector Berlioz commissioned him to play the viola solo at the premiere of the symphony with solo viola Harold in Italy in 1834; according to tradition, the solo had to be played twice in a row. Niccolò Paganini, who originally initiated the work, heard it for the first time in 1838. Giacomo Meyerbeer wrote the famous solo for viola d'amore for Urhan in the opera Die Huguenots .

His students included u. a. Adolphe-Joseph-Louis Alizard and his godchild Julius Stockhausen .

literature

• Ulrich Schuppener: Christian Urhan. For the 200th birthday of the important musician from Monschau (contributions to the history of the Monschauer Land 2), History Association of the Monschauer Land, Monschau 1991.

Web links

• Complete curriculum vitae with a list of works and references in French
• Sheet music and audio files by Christian Urhan in the International Music Score Library Project