Johann Wilhelm Rudolph Glier

Johann Wilhelm Rudolph Glier (born April 17, 1793 in Klingenthal ; † May 3, 1873 there ) was a woodwind instrument maker , music dealer and the founder of the Klingenthal harmonica industry.

Life

Johann Wilhelm Rudolph Glier was the youngest son of the master tanner and co-owner of the Klingenthal forest estate, Christian Gottfried Glier. The Glier's came from an old Vogtland family of instrument makers. Music was in his blood on his mother's side, too, because his mother's brother was the organist and first maiden schoolmaster of Markneukirchen , Georg Carl Liebel. The two godparents of the young Glier, Johann Georg Eschenbach and Johann Georg Otto, brass instrument makers with experience in the arts in Markneukirchen, could also have had a significant influence on the lively and distant-thirsty Johann Wilhelm Rudolph.

On the advice of his eldest brother, Carl Friedrich, Johann Wilhelm Rudolph Glier learned the craft of woodwind instrument maker, which had been introduced in Klingenthal shortly before 1800. In August 1810 (17 years old), after completing his apprenticeship, he wanted to travel to America in order to build up a large instrument trade with his brother. However, because of the continental lock imposed by Napoleon , he was unable to take this trip. So he drove musical instrument trade. The company had a branch in Neubrandenburg . From there both brothers (Carl Friedrich and Johann Wilhelm Rudolph) went on trade trips a. a. to Tönning at the mouth of the Eider , Stettin and the island of Wollin , all on foot and with a wheelbarrow full of instruments. In 1811 Johann Wilhelm Rudolph tried again to get a permit to travel to America. In vain! The lockdown was too strict.

As early as 1814 he was running a music shop in Saint Petersburg and at the same time represented the company of his brothers Carl Friedrich and Christian Ferdinand, who had since taken over the manufacture and sale of wooden combs in addition to the manufacture of musical instruments. This made Johann Wilhelm Rudolph travel all over Europe.

When he returned from Italy in 1829 and received a harmonica from the local physics association in Frankfurt am Main , he had the new instrument rebuilt in his home workshop during his subsequent stay in Klingenthal. The Glier brothers obviously recognized the enormous economic opportunities that lay in the mass production of this small and cheap folk instrument and built a factory next to their parents' house between the former "Todtengasse" (today's Kirchstraße) and the Gliersteig, in which the first Klingenthal harmonica were manufactured.

Wilhelm Rudolph Glier did not intervene in production himself. He was still traveling as a traveler and returned to Klingenthal in 1836. According to a report by the Erzgebirge-Voigtland District Gazette from 1837, the hope for an upswing in Klingenthal instrument making "was based on Mr. Glier junior, who stayed in Petersburg, Odessa and other places abroad for 21 years and made the instrument Found a full opportunity to practically learn fabrication in its most perfect state. The same has been determined after his neulichen return to the homeland, by lifting the greatest possible execution and application of its appropriated Sciences this industry quickly and to use etc. agents from Vienna, Paris, thus selbige gradually get to a European reputation. " For a Apparently these plans did not materialize, as Glier ( nickname : “GlierRuss”) spent his old age in Klingenthal as a “respectable personality” . Johann Wilhelm Rudolph Glier died at the age of 80 on May 3, 1873 and rests in the cemetery in Klingenthal, where a tomb commemorates the well-deserved founder of the local industry. He is said to have transferred the business in Petersburg to his son Karl Gustav.

literature

• Supplement to the Obervogtländischer Anzeiger, No. 91, volume 73, Saturday / Sunday, 17th / 18th April 1943.
• Karl August Wolf, Geschichtliche Nachrichten über das Klingenthaler Kirchspiel, Leipzig 1837, unaltered reprint 1990.
• Karl August Wolf, Klingenthaler Kirchspiel, Volume II, Eibenstock 1862, unaltered reprint 1990.
• Dr. Enrico Weller, Wind instrument making in Vogtland from the beginnings to the beginning of the 20th century, dissertation, Chemnitz 2002, publisher: Association of Friends and Patrons of the Musikinstrumenten-Museum e. V. Markneukirchen, Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar, 2004, ISBN 3-89570-986-7 .

Web links

• Genealogy of the Glier family