Gustav Kobbé

Gustav Kobbé (born March 4, 1857 in New York City , † July 27, 1918 on the Great South Bay in front of Bay Shore on Long Island ) was a New York art and music critic. He was best known for his opera guide The Complete Opera Book .

Origin, education

Kobbé came from a German-American family. His father, the diplomat Wilhelm August Kobbé , had married into a recognized East Coast family as consul general of the Duchy of Nassau in New York and later worked there as a businessman. Gustav Kobbé, like his siblings, attended high school with relatives in Wiesbaden from 1867 onwards and also received lessons in composition and piano lessons. After his return, musical training was continued with Joseph Mosenthal in New York. Gustav Kobbé graduated from Columbia College in 1877 and received his Masters from Columbia Law School in 1879 . In 1882 he married his wife Carolyn Wheeler.

Music critic

Kobbé was initially co-editor of the Musical Review. In 1882 he reported on the first performance of Parsifal as a correspondent from Bayreuth for New York World . He subsequently published articles and contributions on music topics in leading American periodicals such as The Century Magazine , Scribner's Magazine , The Forum , North American Review and others and eventually became a (longtime) music critic for the New York Herald, edited by James Gordon Bennett junior .

At the time of his tragic death, he was about to complete work on his post-mortem major work The Complete Opera Book . Before this work was finally published, however, considerable corrections and insertions were necessary, which Katharine Wright took care of. Insofar as she added further operas, she made these own contributions clear with her initials at the end of the respective contributions.

Tragic death

Kobbé was an avid sailor. When he was traveling with a sailboat on the Great South Bay off Bay Shore , Long Island , in July 1918 , the rig of his catboat was touched by a larger seaplane made by de Havilland , which was approaching for landing . The mast broke in two and Kobbé was killed on the spot by the force of flying parts of the rig. The pilot of the even undamaged machine was a lieutenant in the US Navy who was training for the first Atlantic crossing. He had not noticed the accident at all and was only made aware of the incident after landing.

relationship

His brothers also achieved social prestige: Wilhelm August became a general in the US Federal Army and Philipp Ferdinand was a major in the National Guard and vice president of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company . His grandson Francis Thorne became a respected composer.

Works

Gustav Kobbé (bottom left)

• The Ring of the Nibelung (1889)
• Wagner's Life and works (2 volumes, 1890)
• New York and its Environs (1891)
• Plays for Amateurs (1892)
• My Rosary, and Other Poems (1896)
• Miriam (1898)
• Wagner's Music-Dramas Analyzed (1904)
• The Loves of Great Composers (1905)
• Opera Singers (1905, 6th revised edition 1913)
• Famous American Songs (1906)
• How to Appreciate Music (New York: Moffat, Yard & Company, 1906)
• Portrait Gallery of Great Composers (1911)
• The Complete Opera Book: the Stories of the Operas, Together with 400 of the Leading Airs and Motives in Musical Notation. Edited postmortem by Katharine Wright. Putnam and Sons: New York, 1919; London, 1922.

literature

• The Earl of Harewood (Editor): Kobbé's Complete Opera Book . Putnam, London and New York 1954. Now: The New Kobbé's Opera Book. published jointly with Antony Peattie , most recently in 1997. ISBN 978-0-399-14332-8

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Hydroplane Kills Kobbe in his Boat; Naval Pilot Unaware He Had Struck Art Critic's Craft." New York Times . July 28, 1918. p. 1. Accessed May 9, 2010.
2. ↑ The Earl of Harewood (Ed.), Kobbé's Complete Opera Book . London and New York: Putnam, 1954. pp. Xiii.