Wilhelm Mühlfeld

Pierre-Auguste Renoir : Portrait of Wilhelm Mühlfeld , 1910

Wilhelm Mühlfeld (born January 7, 1851 in Heßberg ; † November 29, 1912 ) was a German oboist , violinist , violist , music teacher, orchestra conductor and composer.

Life

Wilhelm Mühlfeld was born in Heßberg as the third son of the town musician of Salzungen , Leonhard Mühlfeld . Through his father he learned to play the violin at an early age and also received lessons on various wind instruments. The father later decided that the oboe should become Wilhelm Mühlfeld's main instrument among the wind instruments. At the age of ten he sang in the Salzunger church choir and one year later he performed with the oboe at the side of his father and brothers under the direction of Carl Müllerhartung at symphony concerts in Eisenach .

In 1869 Mühlfeld joined the chapel of the Hessian Fusilier Regiment No. 80 and took part in the Franco-German War from 1870 to 1871. During the siege of Paris he stayed with his music choir near Versailles and played repeatedly for the Prussian King Wilhelm . From 1872 to 1891 Mühlfeld was a member of the Wiesbaden Kurkapelle and also played the viola in a string quartet . In addition, Mühlfeld gave music lessons during this time and took composition lessons in Frankfurt am Main. From 1894 to 1906 he directed the singing choir of the Verein der Künstler und Kunstfreunde eV Wiesbaden . In 1908 he was appointed Royal Music Director in Weimar .

Mühlfeld's compositional work includes songs, piano pieces, a sonata for violin and piano and a romance for trombone . The E minor symphony he created was performed in Hildburghausen in 1905 under the direction of Wilhelm Berger with the Meiningen court orchestra . Mühlfeld died of cancer in 1912. In 1910 the portrait of Wilhelm Mühlfeld (today Southampton City Art Gallery ) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir was created during the painter's trip to Munich.

literature

• Maren Goltz: Musicians' Lexicon of the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen (1680-1918)