Wilhelm Baumgartner

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Wilhelm Baumgartner
(around 1850)
Monument in Platzspitz Park in Zurich

Wilhelm Baumgartner (born November 15, 1820 in Rorschach , † March 17, 1867 in Zurich ) was a Swiss choir conductor , pianist and composer of piano pieces, art songs and choral works .

Life

Wilhelm Baumgartner, son of the Rorschach community politician and innkeeper (to the “Green Tree”) Johannes Baumgartner, received his first musical training from the Catholic parish vicar Josef Waldmann in Messkirch and Überlingen from 1833–36 , attended grammar school in St. Gallen from 1836–38 and began 1839 studied literature and philosophy at the University of Zurich .

However, he devoted himself exclusively to music, was a piano student of Alexander Müller from 1839 to 41 and participated in the extensive work of his teacher in the musical life of Zurich as a singer, répétiteur and soon also deputy choir director. After two years as a private piano teacher in St. Gallen, he turned to Berlin in 1844 , where Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy referred him to Wilhelm Taubert , with whom he studied composition. On his return trip in 1845 he met Richard Wagner in Dresden .

In Zurich, Baumgartner worked until his early death as a pianist, composer, music teacher, consultant for the piano construction company Hüni & Hübert, but above all as a choir conductor. He led

  • until 1847 the journeyman's choir "Eintracht"
  • 1849–1866 the Zurich student choir (Zurich singing students )
  • 1851–1862, as successor to Franz Abbot, the town choir founded by Hans Georg Nägeli
  • 1852–1862 the Zurich Cantonal Singers' Association
  • 1862–1866 the Baumgartner men's choir, which in 1867 merged with the town choir to form the Zurich men's choir.

In 1859 Baumgartner was appointed music director of the University of Zurich. In 1861 he married Elise Hauck, daughter of the Zurich baker and city councilor Johann Melchior Hauck.

Baumgartner, along with the politician Johann Jakob Sulzer and the journalist Bernhard Spyri (husband Johanna Spyris ), was one of Richard Wagner's closest confidants during his exile in Zurich (1849-59) and, together with Alexander Müller and Theodor Kirchner, contributed to the success of Wagner's endeavors To raise the level of musical performances in Zurich. In concerts by the Zürcher Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft, from which the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich emerged in 1868 , he appeared several times as piano partner of the pianist and singer Fanny Hünerwadel , to whom he also dedicated some of his songs.

Baumgartner had been a close friend of Gottfried Keller since 1846 . During his stay in Germany, Keller addressed some of the most informative letters to Baumgartner for his life and work, for example from Heidelberg about his encounter with Ludwig Feuerbach and from Berlin about his efforts in the field of drama. Baumgartner, for his part, wrote to encourage his friend to study Wagner's writings on art theory:

“ I would know a lot to write about a new acquaintance: […] Richard Wagner, who has a sparkling effect on me with all the fire of his spirit and his energy, similar to Feuerbach on you, of course mostly in a musical relationship. He is of a genius through and through and revolutionary through and through in his view of art. In the meantime, I would like to draw your attention to the work he wrote here and which he published in Leipzig at Wigand, namely his “Art and Revolution”, especially his “Work of Art of the Future” (by which he understood drama in connection with and participation of all arts want. "

Baumgartner's most popular song
"Mein Heimatland" (around 1870)

The pair of friends were often guests of Wagner and the Wagner patrons Mathilde Wesendonck and Eliza Wille . “Boom”, as his friends called him, set Keller's poems to music, so the much-sung “O my homeland! O my country! ” .

Baumgartner died early in the age of 47, on March 11, 1867. Keller dedicated the following verses to him as an obituary:

Our minstrel he was faithful and wise,
Master Wilhelm in the right manner,
And his mind like a happy flag flight,
And his heart rang loud and soft!
Long and summer long, his game at hand,
He walked faithfully with the fatherland.

In 1891 Jakob August Heer's Baumgartner monument was erected on the Platzspitz in Zurich . His grave is in the Sihlfeld cemetery .

Wilhelm Baumgartner's grave, Sihlfeld cemetery , Zurich

Discography

  • Zsuzsa Alföldi (soprano) and Christoph Keller (piano): Richard Wagner and his Zurich composer friends . MGB Audio CD 6153 (1998). With compositions by Wilhelm Baumgartner, Johann Carl Eschmann, Fanny Hünerwadel, Theodor Kirchner, Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen and Richard Wagner.
  • Tino Brütsch (tenor) and Yvonne Troxler (piano): Mörike settings from Switzerland . MGB Audio CD 6211 (2004). With compositions by Wilhelm Baumgartner, Willy Burkhard, Hermann Haller, Oskar Ulmer , Edward Staempfli, Felix Weingartner and others.

literature

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Emil Ermatinger: Gottfried Keller's life . Eighth, revised edition. Artemis publishing house. Zurich 1950, p. 158.
  2. ^ Homepage Wilhelm Baumgartner of the Zurich Central Library (see under web links).
  3. ↑ Historical Lexicon of Switzerland (see under web links).
  4. ↑ Martin Gregor-Dellin: His life, his work, his century . R. Piper & Co. Publisher. Munich and Zurich 1980, pp. 284, 286 and 352.
  5. ↑ List of works on the Wilhelm Baumgartner homepage of the Zurich Central Library (see under web links).
  6. ^ Adolf Frey: Memories of Gottfried Keller (1891). 3rd edition, H. Haessel Verlag, Leipzig 1919, p. 67.
  7. ↑ Gottfried Keller: Collected Letters , ed. by Carl Helbling. Benteli Verlag, Bern 1950, 1st volume, pp. 273-308.
  8. ↑ Baumgartner to Keller, March 22, 1851; in: Gottfried Keller: Collected Letters , ed. by Carl Helbling. Benteli Publishing House, Bern 1950, Volume 1, p. 285 f.
personal data
SURNAME Baumgartner, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH Rorschach
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1867
Place of death Zurich