Leopold Hofmann (composer)

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Leopold Hofmann

Leopold Hofmann (born August 14, 1738 in Vienna ; † March 17, 1793 ibid) was an Austrian composer of the Viennese Classic .

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Leopold Hofmann, son of a court official, received his musical training as a choirboy in the chapel of the Empress widow Elisabeth Christine. Hofmann's teachers include Georg Christoph Wagenseil and the violinist Giuseppe Trani (1707–1797). Hofmann worked as a musician and teacher in his hometown throughout his life. For example, he taught the children at the imperial court how to play the violin and keyboard instruments. Most of his contemporaries regarded Hofmann as an important composer, and some contemporaries put him on a par with Haydn and Gluck . Dittersdorf , Charles Burney and Johann Adam Hiller described him as a musician of high skill. Numerous awards from the City of Vienna and gifts from the Imperial Court underline this appreciation. Even long after his death, Otto Nicolai referred to him as the founder of the 19th century Viennese violin school. However, Joseph Haydn made several negative comments about Hofmann; so he described him in a letter of July 1781 to the Artaria publishing house as a boastful man.

Hofmann was cathedral music director at St. Stephen's Cathedral from 1772 until his death and presumably choirmaster at Saint Peter. On May 9, 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was placed at his side as an unpaid adjunct with the right of successor. After Mozart's death, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger was his successor as Kapellmeister-Adjunct at St. Stephen's Cathedral. After Leopold Hofmann's death in 1793, Albrechtsberger became cathedral music director himself and remained so until 1809.

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Hofmann's best-known work is the Flute Concerto in D major, which was erroneously attributed to Joseph Haydn. In addition to sacred music, 12 other flute concerts, numerous instrumental concerts, chamber music, divertimenti and 67 symphonies are known. The musician and publisher Johann Georg Sieber (1738–1822), who worked in Paris , printed six Hofmann's symphonies in 1760.

Discography

About seven CDs of his were available at the end of 2012, including

  • 4 cello concerts (Naxos)
  • Flute Concerts Vol 1 (Naxos 1999)
  • 5 symphonies (Badley directory Bb1, F1, D4, F2, C8, Naxos)
  • 2 violin concertos (Naxos 1997)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Eitner : Biographical-bibliographical source lexicon of musicians and music scholars. 5th volume. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1901, pp. 177–178 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ Hofmann's biography on Artaria ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.artaria.com
  3. ↑ Overview ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jpc.de
  4. ↑ audio samples
  5. ↑ audio samples
  6. ↑ audio samples
personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Leopold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoffmann, Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Composer of the Viennese Classic
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1738
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1793
Place of death Vienna