Josef Hellmesberger senior

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The brothers Georg and Josef Hellmesberger. Lithograph by August Prinzhofer , 1845
Josef Hellmesberger senior, lithograph by Adolf Dauthage , 1858
Josef Hellmesberger sen. (1828-1893)
Hellmesberger grave in the Hietzinger Friedhof

Josef Hellmesberger sen. (Born November 3, 1828 in Vienna ; † October 24, 1893 ibid) was an Austrian violinist , conductor and composer of the Romantic period .

Life

Born as the second son of Georg Hellmesberger senior , who was himself an excellent violinist and teacher, Josef received a solid musical education from him.

At the age of 17 he made his first guest appearances as a soloist with the court opera orchestra and went on “art trips” to Germany and London with his father and younger brother Georg Hellmesberger junior . In 1849, at the age of 21, he founded a string quartet , to which he belonged as first violinist until 1887 and thus played a formative role in the Viennese chamber music tradition as the successor to the Schuppanzigh Quartet . (For details of his quartet activities, which are only briefly mentioned below, see the article Hellmesberger Quartet .)

Only one year after the quartet was founded, Josef Hellmesberger sen. (1850) was appointed artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and, at the same time, head of the attached conservatory , Austria's first art school. The hope was attached to him to help the institute and its activities to a safe continuation and a new upswing after the confusion - which seriously threatened its existence - in the wake of the revolution of 1848 .

With youthful ambition and high artistic standards, Hellmesberger first tried to breathe new spirit into the society concerts, which take place four times a year and which had previously been conducted by his father. He replaced the club's own “ amateur musicians” in the orchestra, which essentially consisted of members of the court opera orchestra, with professionals . And with commitment and perseverance he designed contemporary programs in which contemporary composers were finally taken into account. However, a lack of experience, financial constraints and overload clouded his success. Because after the reopening of the conservatory (1851) he had also accepted a professorship for violin - which had been vacated by the departure of Joseph Böhm and Leopold Jansa . Incidentally, this paralleled his father, who had been teaching here for around thirty years, for almost twenty years as a full professor.

Another honor was given to Josef Hellmesberger sen. 1855 with his appointment as a member of the jury for musical instruments at the Paris World Exhibition .

When the agendas were shared at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in 1859 to relieve him, he remained in charge of the Conservatory (which he kept until shortly before his death), while Johann von Herbeck took over those of the Society concerts.

But in addition to his role as primary violinist in the quartet and the management and teaching position at the conservatory, he also took on functions as an orchestral musician and conductor. In 1860 Josef Hellmesberger sen. appointed concertmaster of the court opera orchestra and in 1863 first violinist of the imperial court orchestra. In 1870 he temporarily took over the management of the Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, in 1876 he was promoted to vice court conductor and finally in 1877 (after Herbeck's death) to court conductor . In order to counteract the renewed overload caused by the accumulation of offices, he has now given back his violin professorship.

In the mid-1880s, Hellmesberger sen. finally also on the editorial board of a complete edition of Schubert's works and was responsible for the string quartets.

His career as an instrumental musician came to an end in 1887/1888 when a chronic hand problem forced him to slowly give up playing the violin. However, he retained the functions of director of the conservatory and conductor of the court orchestra until shortly before his death. This overtook him in 1893 at the age of 63 as a result of pneumonia.

His honorary grave is in the Hietzinger Friedhof (group 15, number 4 D). In 1894 Hellmesbergergasse in Vienna- Penzing (14th district) was named after him.

family

Hellmesberger's daughter Maria (1867–1940) was an actress. By marrying the theater actor Fritz Herz , he became his father-in-law.

meaning

If you try the meaning of Josef Hellmesberger sen. to judge in his various musical areas of activity (soloist, primary violinist, director of social concerts, director of the conservatory, violin teacher, concertmaster, conductor, composer), it is probably difficult to do him justice.

Soloist / Primarius

He was an excellent violinist whose individual qualities were repeatedly emphasized by contemporary critics, both as a soloist in the orchestra, but even more so as the first violinist in his quartet.

"His great tone, and his energetic as well as fine performance, assert themselves in the quartet playing to the greatest advantage, and if the virtuoso element also appears here and there, it happens in such a tasteful and discreet way that any objection is dropped." His "fine, sensitive, sometimes flirtatiously polished, but always elegant and delightful playing", as the important music critic Eduard Hanslick characterized it, was of decisive importance.

In the often challenged comparison with the brilliant Joseph Joachim , who was only a few years younger and with whom he had already played together in a “child prodigy quartet” during his short apprenticeship with his father, Hellmesberger mostly lagged behind in the overall assessment. But even Hanslick always knew how to emphasize its advantages in detail. For example in the spring of 1861 on the occasion of a review of Joachim's first concerts since he left Vienna:

“This simple, unadorned size seems to us the most outstanding move in Joachim's game. We do not conceal from ourselves that with this he produces some finer, more directly touching effects. (...) More than one passage from Beethoven would have played Hellmesberger's fine, irritable nature more directly into our hearts than Joachim's indomitable Roman earnestness. The way they perform behaves almost like feminine and masculine, or to need a musical image, like chromatic and diatonic sound genre. "

Hellmesberger is presumably the “Quartet king by God's grace”, as Max Kalbeck often called him, the most significant of his diverse musical roles. In addition to his qualities in technique, ensemble playing and interpretation, he also made lasting contributions to the development of chamber music culture in Vienna , especially in the development and establishment of new works for the repertoire .

Conservatory director

Josef Hellmesberger senior saw himself as director of the conservatory. confronted for a long time with a discussion about the core task of the institute (broad elementary or limited top-level training). Without a significant change in the focus, the range of training courses was instead expanded and measures to improve quality (e.g. by extending the duration of the studies, introducing a numerus clausus for certain subjects, etc.) were taken. In the more than 40 years under his leadership, the institute experienced a considerable boom; the number of pupils increased (not least due to the expansion of the training offer) to about tenfold (from around 100 to around 1000).

Violin teacher

In the role of teacher, Hellmesberger continued the tradition of the newer violin school established by Joseph Böhm as the first violin teacher at the conservatory . It is more about a continuity of formative teacher personalities than a tradition of technical or interpretative characteristics. His students included Leopold von Auer , Josef Bayer , Adolf Brodsky, Hermann Graedener , August Lanner , Leopold Leopoldi , Josef Maxintsak, Karl Mühlberger , Arthur Nikisch , Eduard Rappoldi, Franz Strebinger and others. a. The brothers Johann and Josef Schrammel also emerged from his class.

Concertmaster

As a long-time first violinist in his quartet, Hellmesberger quickly found himself in the role of concertmaster of the Vienna Court Opera and evidently proved himself very well. This is evidenced by a report according to which he got up in an orchestral concert conducted by Richard Wagner that threatened to “slip away” and “restored order with energy, showing the musicians the rhythm and tempo”.

Orchestra leader

At a young age (1851-1859) Hellmesberger had made a contribution to the professionalization of social concerts by relying on professional musicians and filling the programs with a new artistic spirit (aesthetic unity, works by living composers). As the conductor of the concerts, he did not develop a distinctive profile during this phase, and in comparison to that of Herbeck's director, Hanslick found: "From an artistic point of view, they are almost like promise and fulfillment."

When he was elected head of the Philharmonic Concerts after Carl Eckert's departure in 1860, Hellmesberger was considered a promising candidate. Previous disagreements between the music lovers and the court opera orchestra were probably responsible for the fact that the North German Otto Dessoff was preferred to the (disappointed) local hero. He was reluctant to accept the appointment as concertmaster of the court opera orchestra that same year. As the director of the court orchestra from 1877, Hellmesberger was not in the artistic limelight as significantly.

composer

The all-rounder Hellmesberger never had the ambition to shine as a composer, a large part of his works were for teaching anyway. Individual transcriptions and arrangements as well as string music works nevertheless met with approval. Apparently he also changed some of the works to be performed again and again, which was not uncommon practice at the time: “Hellmesberger's efforts for Schubert's work would no longer receive our approval today: he offered Schubert's compositions with drastic cuts and with passages interpolated from other quartets were."

humorist

In addition to his musical qualities, personal qualities have also gone down in history, as he was studded with legendary humor and wit. After all, two publications are dedicated to his best jokes and anecdotes by and with him, the last one (1947) long after his death. One of his last wishes, according to which no music should be made or sung at his funeral, may also serve as proof of this character trait. This on the grounds: "I have played and listened to music so much in my life that I have a right to have an unmusical funeral."

Josef Hellmesberger sen. For more than 40 years he put his artistic and educational strength at the service of Viennese musical life and played a decisive role in shaping it - not least through the accumulation of various functions. As the second member in the "Hellmesberger Dynasty" he reached its zenith, but his sons Josef junior were also . and Ferdinand are active and successful in a wide range of musical fields of activity.

literature

Web links

Commons : Josef Hellmesberger senior  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eduard Hanslick: Musical newsreel. In: Wiener Zeitung . Vienna, November 24, 1849, supplement to the Morgenblatt, p. 4.
  2. ^ Eduard Hanslick: History of concerts in Vienna. Vol. 2., Braumüller, Vienna 1870, p. 50 f.
  3. ^ Eduard Hanslick: Concerte. In: The press . Vienna, February 23, 1861, p. 2.
  4. ↑ Max Kalbeck: Concerte . In: The press . Vienna, December 5, 1888, p. 1 f.
  5. ^ Robert Maria Prosl: The Hellmesberger. 100 years from the life of a Viennese family of musicians. Gerlach & Wiedling, Vienna 1947, p. 78.
  6. ^ Eduard Hanslick: History of concerts in Vienna. Vol. 1, Braumüller, Vienna 1869, p. 386.
  7. ^ Maurice JE Brown: Schubert. A critical biography . Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 1969, p. 314.
  8. ^ Anton Barthlme: From the old Hellmesberger. Funny sayings and anecdotes . Carl Konegen, Vienna 1908, and Roland Tenschert: Father Hellmesberger. A chapter in musician humor . Frick, Vienna 1947.
  9. ^ Robert Maria Prosl: The Hellmesberger. 100 years from the life of a Viennese family of musicians. Gerlach & Wiedling, Vienna 1947, p. 78.
personal data
SURNAME Hellmesberger, Josef senior
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hellmesberger, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian composer, violinist and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1893
Place of death Vienna