Wilhelm Altmann

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Wilhelm Altmann (1905)
Wilhelm Altmann with his wife Marie b. Louis circa 1888
Wilhelm Altmann as a cyclist on the Greifswalder Wall around 1898
Wilhelm Altmann with daughter Ursula and son Berthold in 1907
Proof of being a “ cultural worker ” from 1947

Wilhelm Albrecht Altmann (born April 4, 1862 in Adelnau , Province of Posen , † March 25, 1951 in Hildesheim ) was a German historian and librarian .

Life

Wilhelm Altmann was the son of the Adelnau pastor and later royal superintendent Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Altmann and his wife Ida nee. Heinersdorf. Coming from a musically gifted family, Wilhelm Altmann made music as a violinist at opera performances at the Elisabet Gymnasium in Breslau while he was still in primary school . He then studied history, philology and political science at the Universities of Marburg and Berlin . In 1882 he became a member of the Germania Marburg fraternity . He received his doctorate as Amanuensis from Leopold von Ranke in 1885 . The dissertation had the choice of Albrecht II as Roman King as its topic. In 1886 he became a volunteer , in the same year assistant and in 1888 curator at the University Library in Breslau .

After being transferred to the Greifswald University Library in 1889 , he completed his habilitation in 1893 in the field of historical auxiliary sciences . During his time as a private lecturer in Greifswald , he drew attention to himself as a historian of the Middle Ages through publications, including the regesta of Emperor Sigismund . With Ernst Bernheim he published a collection of documents on German constitutional history . In 1890 he founded an orchestra club there, which he directed from 1895. In that year he met Philipp Losch and recruited him to work in the university library.

Wilhelm Altmann was appointed senior librarian in 1900 and appointed to the Royal Library in Berlin . In 1905 he was given the character of professor. As a member of the International Music Society founded by Oskar Fleischer , he wrote a lecture entitled “Music libraries - a pious wish”, in which he called for the establishment of a “Reichs Music Library”, which “included at least all musical works published in Germany in their original form so that there is finally a place where you can see the works of at least every German composer, hopefully also most of the non-German composers. ”He called on all music publishers to send in music free of charge as a deposit copy . This created an enormous flow that had to be recorded intensively. Altmann therefore broke with old library systems and customs and developed more effective ones to cope with this onslaught. In doing so, he benefited from his knowledge as a historian who had dealt intensively with medieval regests . Another new feature was that he was employing female assistants. In Berlin in 1906 he founded the "German Music Collection at the Royal Library", which was later combined with the old music collection under his direction. This facility, located on Schinkelplatz , became the collection point for these free music items sent in. From 1915 to 1927 Altmann was director of the music department of the Prussian State Library . Here, too, Philipp Losch was a close collaborator of Altmann as a library councilor from 1906 to 1915. From the founding year 1917, Altmann was a member of the Princely Institute for Musicological Research in Bückeburg . He has also worked as a music critic and editor of scores, musician's biographies and bibliographies.

Wilhelm Altmann, himself a violin and string quartet player , was considered one of the best experts on chamber music literature in his day and wrote several manuals in which he discussed a large number of works for various ensembles and gave practical advice on performance. He always tried to suggest valuable works outside of the standard repertoire to the musicians. Overall, his taste in music can be viewed as rather conservative. He was very skeptical of modern trends, especially twelve-tone music, which is often expressed in the works reviews. Occasionally, however, he could warm up to more progressive music. Of his works, the handbook for string quartet players was probably the most widely distributed.

Wilhelm Altmann and his wife Marie geb. Louis are buried in Hildesheim, Peiner Strasse in the Nordfriedhof (central cemetery). The marriage of Wilhelm and Marie Altmann had three children: Ulrich , Ursula and Berthold .

Publications

  • The election of Albrecht II as Roman king. Dissertation (1885).
  • Acta Nicolai Gramis (1889).
  • Wilhelm Altmann: Eberhard Windeckes memorabilia on the history of the age of Emperor Sigmund. - published for the first time in full - R. Gaertners Verlagbuchhandlung, Berlin 1893.
  • The old Frankfurt German translation of the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV (1897).
  • Böhmer, JF, Regesta Imperii XI: The documents of Emperor Sigmund 1410–1437 , arr. von Altmann, Wilhelm, Innsbruck 1896–1900.
  • Public music libraries - a pious wish , in: Zeitschrift der internationale Musikgesellschaft , vol. 1903, no. 1, pp. 1–17.
  • Richard Wagner's letters by sequence and content (1905).
  • The future "German Music Collection" at the Königl. Library in Berlin , in: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , 23rd vol., 1906, no. 2, p. 66 ff.
  • Selected documents on the constitutional history outside Germany since 1776 , 2nd increased edition (1913).
  • Selected documents on the Brandenburg-Prussian constitutional and administrative history , 1st part 15. – 18. Century, 2nd greatly increased edition (1914).
  • Selected documents on the Brandenburg-Prussian constitutional and administrative history , 2nd part 1806–1849, 2nd greatly increased edition (1915).
  • The chamber music works by Friedrich Lux (1920).
  • Handbook for String Quartet Players , Vol. 1: String Quartets (1927).
  • Handbook for String Quartet Players , Vol. 2: String Quartets (1927).
  • Handbook for string quartet players , Vol. 3: String trios, quintets, sextets, octets (1929).
  • Handbook for string quartet players , Vol. 4: Music for strings and wind instruments (1930).
  • Handbook for Piano Trio Players (1934).
  • Manual for piano quintet players (1936).
  • Manual for piano quartet players (1937).
  • Otto Nicolai's Diaries (1937).

Altmann also revised and supplemented Albert Tottmann's Guide to Violin Lessons (under the title Guide to Violin Literature ) and Paul Frank's Kurzgefaßtes Tonkünstler-Lexikon , ISBN 3-7959-0083-2 .

literature

  • Wilhelm Altmann:  Altmann, Wilhelm. In: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): The music in past and present (MGG). First edition, Volume 1 (Aachen - Blumner). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 1949, DNB 550439609 , Sp. 396–398 (= Digital Library Volume 60, pp. 2.186–2.188)
  • Eveline Bartlitz : "... His always ready pen never stood still" (Wilhelm Altmann on his 150th birthday) . In: Forum Musikbibliothek, year 2012, no. 1, pp. 28–33.
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , pp. 13-15.
  • Helmut Hell, Wilhelm Altmann:  Altmann, Wilhelm. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 1 (Aagard - Baez). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 1999, ISBN 3-7618-1111-X  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  • Wilhelm Krabbe: Wilhelm Altmann in memory . In: Musikforschung , Vol. 4 (1951) H. 4.
  • Philipp Losch: On the death of Wilhelm Altmann . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , vol. 1951, no. 7/8, p. 284 ff.
  • Philipp Losch:  Altmann, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 226 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Dietrich Meyer : The Protestant theological faculty in Breslau in the years 1933–1935. In: Peter Maser (Hrsg.): The church struggle in the German East and in the German-speaking churches of Eastern Europe. Göttingen 1992, pp. 98-135.
  • Peter Wackernagel : From the happy times of the Prussian State Library. Memories of colleagues and friends of yore , in: Festschrift for Friedrich Smend on his 70th birthday, presented by friends and students .- Berlin (1963), pp. 61–65
  • Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures , first volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, ISBN 3-598-30664-4 , p. 20.
  • Berlin music history preserved and developed . Information booklet for the exhibition in the vestibule of the German State Library from July 1 to August 30, 1987.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Altmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Elsheimer (ed.): Directory of the old fraternity members according to the status of the winter semester 1927/28. Frankfurt am Main 1928, p. 6.
  2. ^ A b Philipp Losch: On the death of Wilhelm Altmann . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , vol. 1951, no. 7/8, p. 284 ff.
  3. ↑ Public music libraries - a pious wish , in: Zeitschrift der internationale Musikgesellschaft , Jg. 1903, no. 1, pp. 1–17.
personal data
SURNAME Altmann, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Altmann, Wilhelm Albrecht (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German music historian and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Adelnau
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1951
Place of death Hildesheim