Rudolf Reinecke

Johann Peter Rudolf Reinecke , also Reincke , (born November 22, 1795 in Hamburg , † August 14, 1883 in Altona ) was a German seminar music teacher, music teacher and music theorist.

Life

Rudolf Reinecke was the son of a shoemaker who lived in poor conditions in the Gängeviertel . The number of members of the originally large family decreased significantly due to the Napoleonic Wars . Further background information on the family history is insufficiently documented.

Reinecke attended a school for the poor, learned to play a pianoforte on a cardboard keyboard, received violin lessons from the tower keeper of the Sankt Petrikirche and at the age of 15 got a job as an assistant teacher in Altona. In 1813 he moved to St. Pauli as a sub-teacher , where he preserved a large church organ from the fires that the occupiers had lit to burn the Hamburg suburbs during the Hamburg French era .

From 1814 to 1816 Reinecke worked as an assistant teacher in Altona and until 1819 as a private tutor in Hamburg. He then taught in Altona as a private music teacher and for some time at the singing school of Ludwig Samuel Dietrich Mutzenbecher . In 1822 he married Johanna Henriette Dorothea Wetegrove, with whom he had an unknown number of children, including Carl Reinecke .

From 1822 to 1829, Reinecke temporarily took over the administration of the cantor position in the main church in Altona . After the death of his first wife on December 20, 1828 in Bad Segeberg , he married Johanna Elisabeth Henriette Hubp in 1836. In 1844 he received a call as a seminar music teacher at the seminar for school teachers in Segeberg, where he also gave private lessons.

Reinecke retired in 1869 and moved again to Altona, where he gave a lot of private lessons until the end of his life.

Importance as a musician and pedagogue

During his time in Altona, Reinecke founded several clubs. These included in 1825 the “Older Altonaer Liedertafel” as the city's first men's choir, in 1827 the “Association for mixed choral singing” and a men's choir in Ottensen . Particularly noteworthy was the musical direction of the "Apollo Association". Under his leadership, the association became one of the most important cultural organizations in the city at the beginning of the 19th century, performing orchestral works that had not been performed in Altona until then.

Reinecke was in great demand as a teacher of piano, singing and music theory who did not write any works himself. Contemporaries drew comparisons with Leopold Mozart . Reinecke gave his son Carl, whom he taught himself, international recognition. Numerous important composers and singers emerged from his student body in the second half of the 19th century. Based on the compositions of the students it can be seen that they were based on two textbooks that Reinecke had written.

literature

• Gerhard Hahne: Reinecke, Rudolf . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 2. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1971, pp. 206-207