Friedrich Heinrich Himmel

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Friedrich Heinrich Himmel

Friedrich Heinrich Himmel (born November 20, 1765 in Treuenbrietzen , Mark Brandenburg , † June 8, 1814 in Berlin ) was a German composer and pianist .

Life

Christian Friedrich was the son of a margrave valet and later innkeeper and brewer born in Eisenach in 1724, as well as Johanna Christiane Elisabeth Ebel (1730–1787) from Strausberg . His musical talent was recognized early on, as a boy he received organ and piano lessons from the local organist in his hometown. Himmel studied theology in Halle from 1785 , but mainly distinguished himself as a piano virtuoso. He applied to Potsdam as a field preacher, which gave him the opportunity to play before the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II , who was himself a passionate cellist.

He was impressed by his abilities and enabled Himmel to study music in Dresden with Johann Gottlieb Naumann through a scholarship . After he was able to perform his oratorio Isaak in Berlin in 1792 , the king appointed him chamber composer and at the same time allowed him to go to Italy to perform several operas . After his return in 1795 he was appointed royal conductor in the place of Johann Friedrich Reichardt .

He was particularly successful and impressive as a piano virtuoso, which continued to win him the favor of Friedrich Wilhelm II, his family and his chamberlain. He tried to maintain this through intrigue . Due to his lavish and unsound lifestyle, he was constantly in financial difficulties, which is why he encountered open hostility at court, he was accused of slovenliness and drinking .

As a composer he was only moderately successful; his work, often viewed as superficial by his contemporaries, includes some operas and singspiele, numerous songs, piano pieces and also a few orchestral works. Only the operetta Fanchon, the Leyermädchen (text by August von Kotzebue based on a French vaudeville ) achieved some success on the German stages. The work Die Sylphen , magic opera in three acts (premiere April 14, 1806) deserves special attention . The text for this opera , which was strongly influenced by Romanticism, comes from Ludwig Robert , Rahel Varnhagen's brother . The work was only played five times in Berlin, but received a lot of critical attention. Himmel's works disappeared from the repertoire in the middle of the 19th century, and some of his predominantly patriotic and religious songs found their way into school song books in the 19th century. He remained largely unknown abroad. He went on numerous concert tours to Italy, St. Petersburg and Stockholm, for example, always with the intention of creating a reputation and income for himself by performing his compositions. This too was only of moderate success. Beethoven , who got to know him during his stay in Berlin, judged him: He had a very good talent, but nothing more .

Heaven was a Freemason ; he was u. a. In 1807 he was present at the reception of Louis Spohr in the Ernst zum Compaß box in Gotha.

Friedrich Heinrich Himmel died of dropsy in Berlin on June 8, 1814 at the age of 48 after a long illness . He was buried on June 10th in the cemetery of the Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichswerder parishes on Chausseestrasse . The grave has not been preserved.

Works (selection)

Operas

  • Isaac an example of the Savior (1792)
  • Il Primo Navigatore , Pastoral (1794)
  • La Morte Di Semiramide (1795)
  • Fanchon or the Leyermädel , Singspiel (1804)
  • The Sylphs (1808)
  • The Goblin , Singspiel (1814)

Cantatas

Songs

  • I send you to Alexis
  • Psalm, | from all the psalms of David | chosen, set to music, | and | Sr: Your Majesty | To my most gracious monarch, | as a sacrifice of the purest gratitude | to | Most high of the birth = celebration | on September 25th, 1795 | laid at your feet. ( Digitalisat , public library Lübeck )
  • Our Father
  • Prayer during the battle: "Father I call you!"
  • The flowers and the butterfly , song cycle
  • It can't always stay that way, 1802 (setting of a poem by August von Kotzebue )

literature

  • Ignaz Ferdinand Arnold: Friedrich Heinrich Himmel , in: Gallery of the most famous sound artists of the 18th and 19th centuries . Volume 2. Erfurt 1810 ( digitized version )
  • Robert Eitner :  Heaven, Friedrich Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, p. 435 f.
  • Margit Erfurt friend: Friedrich Heinrich Himmel (1765-1814). On the genre problem of German-language stage works in Berlin around 1800 . Saarbrücken 1993
  • Lucy Gelber: The song composers August Harder, Friedrich Heinrich Himmel, Friedrich Franz Hurka, Carl Gottlieb Hering: A contribution to the history of the. music. Song at the beginning of the 19th century Berlin 1936
  • Laurenz Odendahl: Friedrich Heinrich Himmel: Comments on the history of the Berlin opera at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries . Bonn 1917
  • Wilhelm Pfannkuch: Himmel, Friedrich Heinrich , in: The music in past and present (MGG). Volume 5, Kassel 1956, Col. 430-439
  • Wilhelm Pfannkuch:  Heaven, Friedrich Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 170 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Heinrich Himmel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Databases of Berlin Classical Music, Berlin National Theater
  2. ↑ Munich political newspaper , June 22, 1814, p. 694. Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 98.
personal data
SURNAME Heaven, Friedrich Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1765
PLACE OF BIRTH Treuenbrietzen , Mark Brandenburg
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1814
Place of death Berlin