Karl Anton Eckert

Karl Anton Eckert, lithograph by Adolf Dauthage , 1855.

Karl Anton Florian Eckert (born December 7, 1820 in Potsdam , † October 14, 1879 in Berlin ) was a German composer.

Life

Orphaned at an early age, Karl Eckert was adopted by the poet Friedrich Christoph Förster . As early as 1825 Eckert made a name for himself as a musical prodigy. Förster enabled him to gain extensive musical training in piano, violin and horn with Karl Wilhelm Greulich , F. Bötticher and Hubert Ries, among others , and in composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter and Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen . Zelter had become aware of Eckert and in 1832 brought him to the Sing-Akademie as an alto . Rungenhagen was also enthusiastic about Eckert and took him as a pupil, later also Mendelssohn in Leipzig, with whom he completed his studies.

With the support and encouragement of Zelter, Eckert made his debut as a pianist with a solo concert in the fall of 1832. In 1830 he appeared as a composer with the opera “Das Fischermädchen” and in 1833, when he was just 13 years old, as a conductor with his own oratorio “Ruth” with the Sing-Akademie. Two years later he gave his first concert as a violinist.

In the mid-1840s Eckert belonged to a group of artists in Rome around Ludwig Landsberg , Eduard Franck and Théodore Gouvy . Later he was appointed Kapellmeister to the Royal Court Opera , an office which he held until spring 1848. During the March Revolution in 1848 Eckert left Berlin head over heels and emigrated to Amsterdam and later to Brussels .

At a concert in Paris in 1850, Eckert met the singer Henriette Sontag and her husband, the diplomat Carlo Rossi . In the following year Eckert accompanied Sontag on their tour through the USA, on which the singer was able to build on her earlier successes.

In 1853 Eckert returned to Europe. In 1853 he became conductor at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna and was its director from 1858 to 1860. Under his direction, the premieres of Wagner's Lohengrin (1858) and Tannhäuser (1859) were the outstanding events. After that he was Hofkapellmeister in Stuttgart . Wilhelm I , the King of Prussia , called Eckert back to the Royal Court Opera in Berlin in 1868, where he worked as court conductor until 1879 . From 1875 to 1879 he was also a member of the Prussian Academy of the Arts, Berlin , Section for Music.

In addition to his official duties at the court opera, Eckert created his own small compositional work and arranged some works by earlier musicians. As a close friend of Richard Wagner , it was Eckert's credit to have premiered several of Wagner's works in Berlin.

Karl Anton Eckert died in Berlin at the age of 58.

In 1875, Eckertgasse in Vienna- Favoriten (10th district) was named after him.

Works (selection)

• The fisher girl . Singspiel
• The Kathchen von Nürnberg
• The Giant Mountains laboratory assistant . Opera
• Charlatan . Opera
• William of Orange . Opera
• Ruth . Oratorio
• Judith
• Six songs for one voice with accompaniment of the pianoforte. op. 29. Berlin, Bote & Bock, 22 pages

literature

• Carl von Ledebur , Tonkünstler-Lexicon Berlin's from the oldest times to the present , Berlin 1861, p. 126 f. ( Digitized version )
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Eckert, Karl . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 24th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1872, p. 398 ( digitized version ).
• Michael Jahn : The Vienna Court Opera from 1848 to 1870. Personnel - performances - program. (= Publications of the Institute for Austrian Music Documentation 27). Tutzing 2002. ISBN 3-7952-1075-5

Web links

• Sheet music and audio files by Karl Anton Eckert in the International Music Score Library Project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Short biography at the Academy of Arts