Joseph Labitzky

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lithograph by Gustav Friedrich Schlick

Joseph Labitzky (Czech Josef Labický ), (born July 4, 1802 in Schönfeld in West Bohemia , † August 18, 1881 in Karlsbad , Austria-Hungary monarchy ), was a German-Bohemian conductor and composer .

Joseph Labitzky was a son of the cloth shearer Christian Labitzky from Kampern in Prussian Silesia, who came to Schönfeld near Karlsbad in 1800 and married Maria Anna Gerstner, daughter of David Gerstner, carpenter from Petschau and Maria Anna Preißdorfer from Marburg in Styria in 1802 . From an early age he received music lessons in Bečov .

At the age of twelve he lost both parents. At the age of fourteen he joined an orchestra group of traveling musicians from Petschau, then found a job with the bathing orchestra in Marienbad , the following year with the Karlovy Vary seasonal orchestra and began composing at the age of fifteen. Since he only had regular performance and income opportunities in the course season, he looked to earn money elsewhere in winter, which he also used for his musical training. So he played in the winter of 1821/22 at the French Opera in Bern and in the winter of 1822/23 as a musician with the Imperial Russian envoy Count Woronzoff Daschkoff in Munich , where he received further training from Peter von Winter .

In September 1824 he married Antonie Herget, a daughter of the master rope maker Herget in Bečov. Her father insisted that he should have learned an honorable trade by the time he got married. After an apprenticeship as a cloth maker, Joseph Labitzky passed a master craftsman examination in this craft in 1824.

In the winters of 1825/26 and 1826/27, he first traveled to Vienna with a self-made chapel, where he made a guest appearance at the Zur Kettenbrücke inn and also got to know Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss personally; further trips with his band took him to Regensburg, Augsburg, Ulm, Stuttgart, Würzburg and Nuremberg.

In 1835 Labitzky was entrusted with the management of the Karlovy Vary spa orchestra, which he enlarged in the years to come and led to more demanding performances. This position gave him the opportunity to perform in front of prominent spa guests, so that his reputation quickly spread across Europe. Emperor Ferdinand of Austria had him fetched when he was looking for a musician to entertain his guests at a meeting with the Tsar of Russia and the King of Prussia in Teplitz . He was then invited to the Tsar's court in Petersburg in 1838. Joseph Labitzky founded the Karlsbader Musikverein in 1842, became music director , from this position he promoted regional musical life and popularized Slavic folk songs, especially in the Karlsbader Posthof.

Joseph Labitzky directed the Karlovy Vary Orchestra until 1868 and contractually agreed with the city of Karlovy Vary that his son August Labitzky would be his successor as the director of the orchestra.

Labitzky was able to acquire a Europe-wide reputation through his performances with his spa orchestra in front of a sophisticated audience in Karlsbad, through his travels throughout Europe and his admired dance compositions, which made him stand next to Johann Strauss and Joseph Lanner , so that he was the "Waltz King of Bohemia" was designated. In addition to dances, he composed string quartets and variations for violin , flute , clarinet and horn and some pieces of church music. In 1845 he composed a large mass , a requiem and a German Miserere for the Karlovy Vary church choir .

It is recorded of his ten children:

  • Eduard Labitzky (1828–1905) became an architect and state building officer in Troppau, where he a. a. had the city theater and the public aqueduct built and the spa there in Karlsbad.
  • Wilhelm Labitzky (1829–1871) was initially a violinist in the spa orchestra in Karlsbad, then went to Canada and became cathedral music director in Toronto.
  • August Labitzky (1832–1903) emerged as a musician and composer.
  • Toni (Elisabeth Antonie) Labitzky (1833–1894), opera singer, married the entrepreneur and banker Sigismund Kohn-Speyer in Frankfurt in 1871 , who later became president of the German Stage Association and artistic director of the Frankfurt Opera.

Compositions (selection)

  • Chamber music based on parts of Bellini's opera Capuletti e Montecchi
  • Czech, Polish and Russian folk song potpourris (1838 ff.)
  • His compositions from around 1850 have the titles: Carlsbader Sprudel-Galopp ; Hirschensprung Waltz ; Post office sounds ; Memory of Carlsbad and Carlsbad Curtänze .

literature

Web links

Commons : Joseph Labitzky  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roswitha Schieb: Bohemian Baths Triangle - Literary Travel Guide, German Cultural Forum for Eastern Europe, Potsdam, 2016, p. 38
personal data
SURNAME Labitzky, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Labický, Josef (Czech)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION bohemian dance composer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1802
PLACE OF BIRTH Schönfeld
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1881
Place of death Carlsbad