Josef Gung'l

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Waltz composer Josef Gungl, painting by Wilhelm Trübner

Josef Gung'l (baptized name: Josephus Kunkel , born December 1, 1809 in Schambeck , Pest-Pilis-Solt County , † February 1, 1889 in Weimar ) was an Austrian composer and military bandmaster.

Life

According to the church register, he was born on December 1, 1809 in Schambeck (today Zsámbék, Pest County) as "Josephus, son of Georgius Kunkel". Schambeck was a German colonist village near Ofen ( Budapest ), populated by families from southern Germany.

In May 1828 he joined the 5th Artillery Regiment in Pest , where he was accepted into the officers' school. In 1835, at the age of 26, he hired himself as a military musician in the 4th Artillery Regiment in Graz , where his musical talent developed, especially since he was now also a virtuoso of the violin. Since then he has always written himself Gung'l , d. H. without e and with an apostrophe. He felt at home in Graz and was very popular as a regimental bandmaster, because he composed marches and dances that were popular and received with applause at public concerts and ball events. The fact that he was one of the first military band masters to add the string instruments to the wind instruments at his events speaks for his extraordinary musical sense; as a result, he got the reputation of a “Grätzer Lanner”.

The Berlin publishing house Bote & Bock became aware of the young musician, who wrote himself Gung'l in Graz, and published one of his successful first works, the “Hungarian March” as opus 1.

On February 2, 1843, at the age of 34, he married 22-year-old Cajetana Reichel from Graz, who gave him five daughters. On April 26, 1843 he said goodbye to the regiment and formed his own band from 16 young Styrian musicians, members of the Schwarzenbacher Musikgesellschaft. Bote & Bock had already had over twenty of his works published in Berlin , including his original “Eisenbahn-Dampf-Galopp”, the waltz “Die Berliner” with a final gallop in the style of Lanner, the popular march “Kriegers Lust "And then probably one of his most famous works, the Oberländler" Sounds from the home ".

After successes in Linz , Salzburg , Munich , Augsburg and Nuremberg , he arrived in Berlin in October 1843 and gave his first concert on October 16 in the prestigious “Sommer's Salon” restaurant. Thanks to his well-rehearsed, extensive program, which in addition to his dance compositions also included works by Johann Strauss (son) , opera overtures and others, he was soon able to win the sympathy of the Berlin population. Gung'l proved himself through his qualities as an excellent conductor , an excellent orchestra educator and a skilled, imaginative organizer. In a short time he had mastered the concert scene in the city and left his mark on it. In these concerts he also played symphonies with a reinforced orchestra. B. Louis Spohr's 3rd Symphony "Consecration of Tones" on July 15, 1846 in the presence of Giacomo Meyerbeer .

In March 1846 he began his first major art trip to Pest. It was probably the only time that he performed with his orchestra in his home country. He organized his first major concert cycle in Hamburg in October 1847, where he and his orchestra took part in the performance of the oratorio “ Elias ” on October 9th in the Hamburg Tonhalle.

On October 15, 1848 Gung'l left Bremen with 28 musicians on the steamship "Washington" for New York . On the crossing he composed his master waltz "Dreams on the Ocean". At first the tour was very successful. The highlight was the official participation in the establishment ceremony of the new President Zachary Taylor in March 1849 in Washington . However, parts of his chapel succumbed to the gold rush and disappeared overnight. So he finally had to travel home in May 1849.

He resumed his old concert activity in Berlin and was awarded the title “kgl. prussia. Music Director ”on January 4, 1850. In the same year he was offered the direction of the summer concerts in the Vauxhall in Pavlovsk near St. Petersburg . He held this engagement for six years with great success.

Because of concert oversaturation in Berlin, he settled in Vienna at the end of 1855 . Despite all his efforts, Gung'l was unable to assert himself in Vienna in the long term. From 1856 to 1864 he was Kapellmeister of Inf. Rgt. No. 23 "Airoldi" in Brno. In 1863 Gung'l received an invitation from the "Musikgesellschaft a la Gung'l", founded in Munich in 1843 after his guest performance at the time, to lead several "productions" in various ballrooms and bars for its twentieth anniversary, which was so successful that one ended up In 1864 a permanent collaboration was agreed. Gung'l quit his military service and moved with his family to Munich at the end of 1864, where he again had great success. The final contract negotiations with the "Musikgesellschaft a la Gung'l" failed because of his high financial demands.

After putting together and practicing his own orchestra, he began his concert activities in Munich in early 1865. Among the numerous civil and military brass bands, his orchestra soon assumed a special position, since as an excellent violinist he increasingly took up strings and significantly increased the quality of the performances. The repertoire was also made more attractive by including popular classical compositions and own works.

Concert tours took him to Amsterdam in 1865 and to Leipzig in 1866 .

His 44-year-old wife Cajetana died on August 30, 1866, so he had to cancel a trip to Paris .

It was not until 1868 that he was able to accept a longer engagement again. From July to October he gave promenade and symphony concerts in Geneva with his orchestra. Also in 1868 he founded the " Bad Reichenhall Philharmonic " in Bad Reichenhall , which still exists today. Gung'l was the orchestra's first chief conductor in 1868 and 1869. After him were Karl Hünn, Gustav Paepke (son-in-law of Josef Gung'l) and, in the period after the Second World War , Dr. Wilhelm Barth director of the orchestra.

After a successful summer engagement in Stockholm in 1871, a repeat was planned. However, Gung'l only reached Copenhagen and Malmö with his band in 1872 , because the contract in Stockholm did not materialize. Due to financial difficulties, he had to dissolve his orchestra in northern Germany in August 1872 . He also had to give up his residence in Munich, he moved back to Berlin with his children, where he found an engagement in the “Concert-Haus”. In the summer of 1873 he gave concerts as a guest conductor in Warsaw and in the autumn of 1873 he conducted his dance music works in London as part of the promenade concerts. He was hired again for the autumn events in London in 1874, 1875 and 1880. His last triumph was the direction of the four famous opera balls in Paris in January / February 1881.

He spent the last years of his life with his daughter Virginie , a successful opera singer , and accompanied her to her engagement cities - most recently to Weimar. He died here on February 1, 1889 and was buried in a family grave. The grave site was leveled in 1956 by the GDR authorities .

Works

Gung'l composed over four hundred waltzes , polkas , mazurkas and marches . His most popular works are the concert waltz Dreams on the Ocean and the Hungarian March , which Liszt also transcribed for piano. The 2014 recording by the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christian Simonis provides an overview .

More than one hundred dances have been handed down from his nephew Johann Gungl (born March 5, 1828 in Zsámbék; † November 27, 1883 in Pécs ), who was violinist in the St. Petersburg court orchestra from 1848 to 1862 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Joseph Gungl  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the spelling of the name see: Stanley Goscombe: Josef Gung'l (1809-1889) . In: German Johann Strauss Society (ed.): New life. Issue 45, 1/2014, pp. 32–35
  2. ^ Alfred Dreher: Josef Gung'l - A dance composer of the Strauss time. Newly published in New Life - Bulletin of the German Johann Strauss Society. Issue 45, No. 1/2014, pp. 26–31. Originally in: Wiener Bonbons. Journal of the Johann Strauss Society Vienna. Volume 3, 1993, pp. 14-16. With numerous references, including errors in various lexicons.
personal data
SURNAME Gung'l, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gungl, József; Kunkel, Josephus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian composer and military bandmaster
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Zsámbék , Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun county
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1889
Place of death Weimar