Julius Buths

Julius Buths (born May 7, 1851 in Wiesbaden , † March 12, 1920 in Düsseldorf ) was a German pianist , composer and conductor as well as city music director in Düsseldorf.

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Julius Buths received his first piano lessons from his father Carl Buths, a chamber musician , as well as from Kapellmeister Wilhelm Freudenberg and already made his first public appearances during his high school days. After graduating from high school, he studied at the Cologne Conservatory with Ferdinand von Hiller and Friedrich Gernsheim . He then took over the management of the Cecilia Association in Wiesbaden before moving to Friedrich Kiel in Berlin to continue his studies . He then went on a study trip through Italy in 1873 as a scholarship holder of the Giacomo Meyerbeer Foundation, which brought him great success at the various concert halls. However, he fell ill during this concert tour and had to go to Davos for a cure.

After his recovery, he first appeared in Paris for a short time , but soon moved to Breslau , where he directed the orchestra there and founded a choral society. In 1879 he followed a call to Elberfeld , where, on the recommendation of Johannes Brahms, he succeeded Hermann Schornstein , the son of the co-founder of the Lower Rhine Music Festival Johannes Schornstein , as head of several important musical associations. In the following years he did a convincing and successful job despite a relatively small budget available. In 1890, this led to the city of Düsseldorf offering him the position of city music director as the successor to Julius Tausch . Buths accepted the offer and was promoted to Royal Professor five years later. In addition, it was 1902 or the first director of what he, together with Otto Neitzel founded private " Buth-Neitzel Conservatory " appointed, which later in 1935 at the initiative of music director Hugo Balzer with two other music institutes to today's Robert Schumann Conservatory Dusseldorf merged . In addition, he took over the management of the teachers' choir and also made a living by organizing regular chamber music evenings, in which, together with his friends Max Reger and Joseph Joachim, he mostly played a pianist himself.

At the turn of the year 1907/08, Buths decided to resign from his position as music director, despite great success and undisputed popularity, and merely to maintain the leadership of the teachers' choir and the conservatory. In the spring of 1908 this led to the fact that the Niederrheinische Musikfest, which took place in Düsseldorf that year, had to be canceled due to the lack of a competent replacement at short notice for the festival management. Julius Buths gradually withdrew from active musical life in the following years and finally died on March 12, 1920. One of his two daughters, Else König-Buths, became a successful harpsichordist who also worked in Düsseldorf . In his honor, a small street in Düsseldorf was named "Julius-Buths-Weg".

During his entire time in Düsseldorf, Julius Buths studied numerous world premieres and premieres with his orchestra. Under his leadership, there were, among other things, Düsseldorf premieres of the new editions of the B minor Mass by Johann Sebastian Bach and of “ La damnation de Faust ” by Hector Berlioz as well as the German premieres of the oratorios “ The Dream of Gerontius ” and “The Apostles “By Edward Elgar and the Requiem op. 63 by Charles Villiers Stanford , all translated into German by himself. He also directed the first performances of the “ Messa da Requiem ” by Giuseppe Verdi , the “ Grand Messe Des Mortes ” by Berlioz and the world premieres of his oratorio “Rinaldo”, the “Te deum” by Franz Wüllner , and the choral work “Athenian Spring Dance” by Joseph Frischen and the ballad “Vom Pagen und der Königstahl” by Fritz Vollbach. In addition to the respective annual concert schedules, Julius Buths was festival director of the Niederrheinischer Musikfest six times, sometimes together with Hans Richter or Richard Strauss, and also ensured a balanced combination of traditional classical music together with current and modern compositions of the emerging contemporary music, some of which were not as well known Composers.

Works (selection)

• “Rinaldo”, op. 10, cantata based on texts by Goethe for solos, male choir and orchestra
• Concerto for piano and orchestra in D minor
• "Festmotette" for mixed choir and orchestra
• String Quartet in D minor
• Piano quintet in D major
• Madrigal for nine -part a cappella choir based on Goethe's charade " Herzlieb "
• six preludes for piano

Literature and Sources

• Julius Alf:  Buths, Julius. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 78 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Julius Alf: Das Düsseldorfer Musikleben under Julius Buths , in: Karl Gustav Fellerer (Ed.): Contributions to the music history of the city of Düsseldorf , Cologne-Krefeld 1952, pp. 54–63 (issue 1)

Web links

• Literature by and about Julius Buths in the catalog of the German National Library
• http://www.historische-daten.de/projekte/museum/sterne/buths.htm
• http://www.staedtischermusikverein-duesseldorf.de/lebenslauf/lebenslauf_druck.php