Johanna Kinkel

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Johanna Kinkel, 1840

Johanna Kinkel , née Mockel , divorced Mathieux (born July 8, 1810 in Bonn , † November 15, 1858 in London ) was a German composer , music teacher , writer and salonnière . In her second marriage, she was married to the Protestant theologian and politically active republican Gottfried Kinkel , with whom she founded the well-known late romantic poets' circle Maikäferbund . She was considered the center of the cultural life of her hometown Bonn. Kinkel is the only significant representative of Bonn dialect poetry of the 19th century and was an early champion of the women's rights movement .

Life

Johanna Mockel was the daughter of the Bonn high school teacher Peter Joseph Mockel and his wife Anna Maria. The mother initially supported her daughter with sewing and cooking lessons. At the age of 15, the strictly Catholic raised girl knew that she wanted to become a musician. Through her father's mediation, she got in touch with Franz Anton Ries and his circle. Ries taught her to play the piano. Johanna Mockel began to work as a piano and singing teacher. She composed her op. 1, the bird cantata , at the age of 19. She published the revised version in Berlin in 1838 with Trautwein. She had composed the piece for the "Musical Kränzchen", which Ries had entrusted her to lead. From 1829 to 1832, 1834 to 1836 and from 1839 to spring 1848 she headed this choral society in Bonn.

First marriage

At the age of 22, Johanna Mockel married the Cologne book and music dealer Johann Paul Mathieux in 1832 . After six months, the parents brought their mentally and physically ill daughter back to Bonn. A medical report speaks of "nerve breakdown with wasting fever, caused by mistreatment by means of selected tortures". After more than a year she resumed her musical activity in the social context of Bonn.

Training in Berlin

Johanna Kinkel

Through the mediation of Dorothea Schlegel , she met Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in 1836 . On his advice she went to Berlin and studied figured bass with Karl Böhmer; Wilhelm Taubert trained her to be a concert pianist. She financed this study visit by giving private piano lessons. Through the mediation of Georg von Brentano , whom she met in Frankfurt and with whom she fell in love, she soon became friends with Bettina von Arnim , whose daughters she taught free of charge. An “Opera seria” by Johanna Mathieux entitled Savigny and Themis , staged by the painter Caroline Bardua (1781–1864), was performed by Bettina von Arnim's children on the occasion of Friedrich Karl von Savigny's birthday in 1838. In Berlin she soon made friends with her mentor's sisters, Rebecca Mendelssohn Bartholdy , married Dirichlet, and Fanny Hensel , in whose Sunday concerts she played. In this circle and Bettina von Arnim's salon, she met Clara Schumann , at that time still Clara Wieck, Adelbert von Chamisso , Karl August Varnhagen von Ense and Emanuel Geibel , among many other famous contemporaries .

The time in Berlin was an extremely fruitful period for the composer. She wrote duets, cantatas , set poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Emanuel Geibel, among others , and her own texts. All works can be described as good " romantic music for use". This was followed by publications of his own compositions, which were highly praised by critics such as Ludwig Rellstab and Robert Schumann and enjoyed great popularity.

Back in Bonn

Johanna Kinkel, engraving around 1855

In 1839 she returned to Bonn - since Johann Paul Mathieux finally consented to the divorce. There she held morning concerts and, with her former students, re-founded her choral society, which is considered to be one of the first women-led choral societies in Germany. In the following years it became the center of musical Bonn and inspired with its concerts a. a. Franz Liszt . In 1840, after a lengthy process, their marriage was divorced.

In May 1839 she met Gottfried Kinkel again, whom she had briefly known from her youth. Together they founded the late romantic group of poets Maikäferbund , which, in addition to social gatherings, also wrote a handwritten magazine of the same name, which only circulated among friends. Members of the circle of poets were u. a. the later Swiss art historian Jacob Burckhardt , Willibald Beyschlag and Franz Beyschlag , Karl Simrock , Alexander Kaufmann and Wilhelm Junkmann . Johanna Kinkel, too, was the only woman to write poems, stories, anecdotes and music-critical essays in the magazine. Your story Dä Hond on dat Eechhohn. Ä Verzellsche for Blahge ("The dog and the squirrel . A story for children") published it in 1849 by Sulzbach in Bonn. In 1843 Johanna Mathieux, who had converted to the Protestant faith, married Gottfried Kinkel. Johanna Kinkel was the mother of four children until 1848.

Time of the March Revolution

“Democrats' song” - composed and probably also the text by Johanna Kinkel - performed for the first time on December 5, 1848

Johanna Kinkel's husband Gottfried became one of the symbolic figures who called for the establishment of an all-German republic during the Baden - Palatinate uprising in 1849 . His wife supported him with all her strength. Karl Marx , who published the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne during the German Revolution of 1848/49 , wanted to hire her to translate English texts, but Gottfried Kinkel refused. While her husband was absent as a member of parliament in Berlin and shortly afterwards as a participant in the revolution, Johanna Kinkel took over the editing of the Neue Bonner Zeitung .

When the last uprising in Baden was suppressed, which also marked the final failure of the March Revolution of 1848/49 in the states of the German Confederation , Gottfried Kinkel was arrested by the Prussian military and sentenced to life in prison. Johanna Kinkel played a central role in preparing for the liberation of her husband from Spandau prison . She organized the financial means that were necessary for the liberation campaign and passed on the liberation plans to the imprisoned Gottfried Kinkel. The liberation was carried out by Carl Schurz , who got Gottfried Kinkel out of the penitentiary on the night of November 6th to 7th, 1850 in a spectacular action. Schurz and Kinkel fled together via Rostock and from there to Warnemünde . On November 17, 1850, they traveled by ship to Edinburgh in Scotland, where they arrived on December 1, 1850.

Emigration to London

In January 1851, Johanna Kinkel and her four children followed her husband into exile in London . During his agitation tour to the USA (from September 1851 to February 1852), on which Gottfried Kinkel was campaigning for funds and troops for a new revolution in Germany, Johanna Kinkel founded a children's singing school and gave piano and singing lessons, with which she temporarily made her sole living the family earned. After his return, Gottfried Kinkel gave lectures in London, Manchester and Edinburgh and taught privately and at various educational institutions in London. Johanna Kinkel composed very little because of a lack of time, as she still had to contribute to the support of the family. But she wrote musicological treatises and gave lectures, including on Mendelssohn, Chopin, Mozart and Beethoven. Shortly before her death, she finished her novel Hans Ibeles in London , published posthumously by her husband in 1860. Here she had processed her own experiences of exile life and that of her friends and acquaintances.

Blackboard photo by Johanna Kinkels in Bonngasse in Bonn.

death

At the age of 46, Johanna Kinkel suffered a heart attack from which she initially recovered. However, her health deteriorated more and more in 1858. On the afternoon of November 15, she fell from the window of her bedroom on the third floor. Circumstances suggested a suicide due to depression , but this has never been proven beyond doubt.

The musicologist and writer Eva Weissweiler speaks out in favor of the version of suicide . It points to the “more or less clearly” formulated suicide intention of the author Kinkel in the novel Hans Ibeles in London - a family picture from refugee life. Weissweiler writes about Kinkel's death:

"With Johanna Kinkel, not only one of the most productive composers of German Romanticism was buried, but the still unresolved question of women (about the" determination of women ", which Kinkel addresses in the novel)."

Furthermore, she was “the only one among the romantic female composers” ( Fanny Hensel , Josephine Caroline Lang , Clara Schumann ) “to consistently think through the problem of women and composition.” And: “that after a political catastrophe [like the revolution of 1848] composing is simply no longer possible. "

Ferdinand Freiligrath honored the political companion with a long poem: After Johanna Kinkel's funeral , "whose revolutionary pathos is quite embarrassing based on knowledge of the prehistory," said Weissweiler.

memory

In Bonn a street is named after Johanna Kinkel. In the Bonngasse Today a blackboard photo of her. In addition, a memorial plaque for the birthplace of Johanna Kinkel, at that time still Johanna Mockel, was installed in Bonn's Josefstrasse.

Title page to Johanna Kinkel's story Dä Hond on dat Eechhohn

- In 2010, on the occasion of Johanna Kinkel's 200th birthday , the puppet theater piece The Dog and the Squirrel , written by Karin Lübben after her “Verzellsche für Blahge: Dä Hond on dat Eechhohn ”, premiered in Bonn's Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Haus

Works

literature

  • Marie Goslich: Letters from Johanna Kinkel. In: Prussian year books . Volume 97. Berlin 1889, pp. 185-222; 398-433.
  • Paul Kaufmann: Johanna Kinkel: New contributions to your life picture. Stilke, Berlin 1931.
  • Monica Klaus: Johanna Kinkel. Romance and revolution. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20175-3 (= European female composers. Volume 7).
  • Monica Klaus (arrangement): Dear faithful Johanna! Dearest god! The correspondence between Gottfried and Johanna Kinkel 1840–1858. Publications of the Bonn City Archives. Vol. 67-69. City of Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-922832-43-0 .
  • Monica Klaus: "A witty woman" - Johanna Kinkel, divorced Mathieu, geb. Mockel (Bonn 1810 – London 1858) . In: Andrea Stieldorf u. a. (Ed.): But suddenly now emancipated, science wants to drive it. Women at the University of Bonn (1818–2018), Göttingen: V & R unipress 2018 (Bonner Schriften zur Universitäts- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte; 9), pp. 55–78.
  • Blanche Kommerell : “And that's how I flee time”. Radio feature about Johanna Kinkel with works by her edited by Frank Böhme. Prod .: Broadcasting of the GDR, 1990.
  • Josef Niesen : Bonn Personal Lexicon. Bouvier, Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-416-03159-2 .
  • Elsa Ostleitner: Fanny Hensel, Josephine Lang , Johanna Kinkel. In: Forgotten Biedermeier women composers. Hans Schneider Verlag, Tutzing 2000, ISBN 3-7952-1015-1 , pp. 53-60.
  • G. Reich: Malwida von Meysenbug in her letters to Gottfried and Johanna Kinkel. In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter, 1, 1937, pp. 153–166.
  • Eva Rieger (Ed.): Woman and Music. ( The woman in society, early texts. Edited by Gisela Brinker-Gabler). Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-596-22257-5 , pp. 48-55.
  • Klaus Schmidt : Justice, the bread of the people - Johanna and Gottfried Kinkel. A biography. Radius-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-87173-096-3 .
  • JF Schulte: Johanna Kinkel. Schöningh, Münster 1908.
  • Carl Schurz : Memoirs up to the year 1852 . Georg Reimer, Berlin 1911.
  • K. Stephenson: Johanna Kinkel In: KG Fellerer (Hrsg.): Rhenish Musicians = Contributions to Rhenish Music History, Issue 64, 4th episode. Cologne 1966. (Incomplete catalog raisonné, the list mainly lacks references to Johanna's journalistic work.)
  • E. Thalheimer: Johanna Kinkel as a musician. Phil. Diss. Bonn 1922. (Lost in Weissweiler).
  • Eva Weissweiler: female composers from the Middle Ages to the present. Bärenreiter / Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-423-30726-9 (therein article about Johanna Kinkel).

See also

Web links

Wikisource: Johanna Kinkel  - sources and full texts
Commons : Johanna Kinkel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Eugen Wohlhaupter: Dichterjuristen: Volume 1: Savigny-Brentano, Savigny-Arnim, Thibaut-Schumann, Goethe, Grillparzer, Kleist. 1953, ISBN 3166277625 , p. 118.
  2. ↑ Bonner Stadtmuseum ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 36 kB), p. 3  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.bonn.de
  3. ^ Eva Weissweiler: Female composers from the Middle Ages to the present. Pp. 225 to 242 (about Johanna Kinkel), here p. 241.
  4. ↑ Weissweiler p. 242.
  5. ↑ Weissweiler, p. 226.
  6. ↑ Weissweiler, p. 241.
  7. ↑ See Johanna-Kinkel-Strasse (D-53175 Bonn, Plittersdorf) . (Accessed September 16, 2014.)
  8. ↑ See memorial plaque for Johanna Kinkel . (Accessed September 16, 2014.)
  9. ↑ "Bonner Presseblog" on September 13, 2011 on the performances of the puppet play The Dog and the Squirrel by Karin Lübben based on a Verzellsche for Blahge by Johanna Kinkel in the Bad Godesberg house on the Redoute : "In the piece that is played by the puppet and puppet theater 'Seidenfäden' is about Drückche, a little girl who lives in modest circumstances with her widowed mother and the dog Assor. One day Drückche was given a squirrel. The animal, longing for its freedom, persuades Drückche to flee with him into the forest. (...) In 2010 the first performance of the piece took place in Bonn's Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Haus on the occasion of Johanna Kinkel's 200th birthday. "
  10. ↑ See website “10. Oberkasseler Kulturtage 2011 “ ( Memento of the original from December 22nd, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : The "Marionette and Puppet Theater Seidenfädchen" also took part in Oberkassel (Bonn) , Gottfried Kinkel's birthplace, with the performance of the puppet play The Dog and the Squirrel by Karin Lübben based on Verzellsche for Blahge: Dä Hond on dat Eechhohn by Johanna Kinkel the "10. Oberkassel Culture Days 2011 ". @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / oberkasseler-kulturtage.de
  11. ↑ Features and reports on radio in the GDR . Recordings from 1964–1991 . Berlin 1999, p. 162.
  12. ↑ Quoted from Weissweiler, p. 244, fn. 67.
personal data
SURNAME Kinkel, Johanna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mockel, Johanna (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonn
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1858
Place of death London