Johannes Weinrich (People's Artist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johannes Weinrich (born March 15, 1793 in Uder , † October 15, 1855 in Heiligenstadt ) was a German folk artist and inventor.

Life

He was the son of a blacksmith who ran a small inn as a side income. After the early death of his parents, he completed an apprenticeship as a shoemaker with his guardian. He showed an interest in music at an early age. He learned to play the flute as an autodidact . After completing his apprenticeship, he went on a hike and took clarinet lessons in Strasbourg.

When he returned to Heiligenstadt after wandering in 1815, he married the daughter of the wealthy merchant Fontano and ran a shoemaker's workshop in the city.

Inspired by the Jew's Harp, he made brass tongues, mounted them on a wooden block and thus invented the harmonica , which he did not market. Then he invented a kind of keyed trumpet and a new kind of clarinet, which he himself called psallic melodicon . He connected the clarinet to a wind box, similar to a bellows, with which he blew air into the melodicon. So he could play psalteries and chorales and sing at the same time. He traveled with his instrument and was very successful. He also devoted himself to poetry, bought the Iberg near Heiligenstadt, on which he had a lookout tower and a restaurant built.

Weinrich had a fatal accident on his property on the Iberg in 1855 when he lit a mortar on the occasion of the birthday of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. To please his guests with the echo. When the gun burst during the shot, a piece of the cannon hit him in the head, so that he died at the scene of the accident.

Honors

His contemporaries jokingly called him "Hans Sachs II." And placed a memorial stone for him after his accidental death.

literature

  • H. Daub: Johannes Weinrich. In: Central German Life Pictures. Volume 1, Life Pictures of the 19th Century, Magdeburg 1926, pp. 134–141
  • Bernhard Sacrificial Man : Designing the Eichsfeld. Verlag FW Cordier 1999, ISBN 978-3-929413-37-3
  • Sundine , Neu-Vorpommersches Unterhaltungsblatt für Neu-Vorpommern and Rügen, published by Wilhelm Hauschild Stralsund 1834, p. 71f