Wilhelm Wieprecht

Wilhelm Wieprecht (1868)

Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht (born August 8, 1802 in Aschersleben , † August 4, 1872 in Berlin ) was a German composer , conductor , and arranger . He is considered a great reformer of German military music .

Life

Father Wieprecht, who took part in the campaigns of 1790 and 1806 as a trumpeter, was a versatile musician (violin, flute, clarinet ...) who had settled in Aschersleben as a so-called town musician. So it was obvious that the son Wilhelm Wieprecht received music lessons at a very young age. At the age of ten he was already performing a violin concerto in public. When the father's teaching abilities didn't bring anything essentially new to the son, he received further lessons from the court musician Hünerbein, a student of Louis Spohr . In August 1821 he moved to Leipzig , where he received letters of recommendation from Stadtkapellmeister Barth and von Rörte, who advised him to contact Carl Maria von Weber . With these letters Wieprecht moved to Dresden , where he first became a musician in the orchestra of city music director Johann Gottfried Zillmann . Carl Maria von Weber campaigned for Wieprecht and referred him to Louis Haase for further studies. There he met the well-known clarinetist Rotte, for whom he composed several clarinet solos. In June 1822 Barth invited him to Leipzig to become a member of the Gewandhaus Orchestra . Wieprecht completed his knowledge of wind instruments in the town band of Barth, although he played the violin in the Gewandhaus Orchestra . In 1824 he became a chamber musician in Berlin on the advice of his cousin grand piano , who was music director of the Berlin Ballet . There he got in close contact with military music. At the changing of the guard he heard an infantry music corps play the overture to Figaro's wedding by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . The following quote is recorded: Was it the rhythm, the melody, the harmony or the merging of these various elements that shook me so violently? - When I followed this military band on its march to the parade of the guard and heard it play the overture to Mozart's Figaro in a closed circle, it became a firm decision in my heart to dedicate myself exclusively to military music from now on. With all of my previous knowledge in the field of bladder instruments, I felt a job for this and overlooked at a glance that I would soon achieve something good in this field. He realized very quickly that a large area was open here.

The cavalry music corps were composed of musicians who played exclusively on natural instruments (without valves). They had hardly any useful and authentic literature. He wrote six marches for Major Gottlieb von Barner's (1786–1846) trumpet corps of the Guards Dragoons . These were happily recorded and performed continuously. The commander of this music corps then gave him the opportunity to reorganize the trumpet corps according to his own ideas. Soon he had the first successes. His changed line-up consisted of six trumpets, two valve horns , two tenor horns, a tenor bass horn and two bass slide trombones. For special occasions, this corps of 13 musicians was supplemented by six trumpets and a bass slide trombone. Because of the success in Berlin, other cavalry and dragoons music and trumpet corps soon followed.

Trumpeter Corps of the Zietenhusars .

In 1829 the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Wieprecht was commissioned to reform the bodyguard music corps in Potsdam and left him with the training of all trumpeters. Shortly afterwards, Wieprecht - together with the Berlin court instrument maker Johann Gottfried Moritz - developed the bass tuba. There was already a so-called bombardon with valves, but it could not hold its own against the new possibilities of the developed bass tuba. The bass tuba was patented in 1835.

In 1835 Prince Albrecht of Prussia promoted Wieprecht to inspect the three music corps of his brigade. From this Wieprecht developed an orchestra with 80 musicians, with which he gave numerous successful concerts. At a wedding in 1837, this orchestra played the torch dance by Gaspare Spontini and a torch dance by Wilhelm Wieprecht in uninterrupted repetition and left a deep impression.

On February 2, 1838 Wieprecht even became director of all the music bands in the Guard Corps. On May 8, 1838, Tsar Nicholas I came to visit from Russia . Wieprecht put together an orchestra of 1000 musicians and 200 tambours from all of Berlin's music corps. In a second performance, the orchestra played the Olympic overture by Gaspare Spontini and the jubilee overture by Carl Maria von Weber. An important anecdote is certainly that on August 10, 1838, on the evening of a troop inspection by the Russian Tsar Nicholas I near Landshut, by order of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. the tattoo was ordered for all Prussian armies. Since then, the tattoo has also been called the Russian tattoo . Wilhelm Wieprecht created the ceremonial of the Great Zap, which is still valid today, by merging the tattoo with the cavalry retreat and adding the prayer with curls, shout and tee .

This was followed by concerts with such large orchestras in Lüneburg and Koblenz on the occasion of Queen Victoria's visit.

After that, the entire Prussian military music was reformed, especially the instrumentation. Even in Sweden and Denmark the reform was adopted in the local military music corps. In 1847 Turkey asked Wieprecht to reform its military music corps as well. In 1852 Wieprecht sent an assistant to respond to the request of the government of Guatemala to reform its military music corps. In 1857 Wieprecht became a member of the Swedish Academy. Giacomo Meyerbeer , Gaspare Spontini and Franz Liszt , who were friends with Wieprecht and were grateful to him for various transcriptions of their works for military music corps, had initiated a discussion in the Paris Conservatory to learn about Wieprecht's theories and reforms.

The climax of the musical career was the competition for military bands at the World Exhibition in Paris on July 21, 1867. The most famous military bands from all over Europe vied for the honor in front of a jury made up of Ambroise Thomas , Hans von Bülow , Félicien David and Léo Delibes . In addition to the compulsory work, the overture to Oberon by Carl Maria von Weber, he performed a fantasy from the opera The Prophet by Giacomo Meyerbeer with his united music bands (2nd Guard Regiment and the Grenadier Regiment Kaiser Franz ) and was unanimously awarded the first prize. Many saw this success as the consecration of his developed instrumentation system. Napoleon III invited Wieprecht twice to Versailles and awarded him the Cross of Honor of the French Legion of Honor.

Trumpet Corps of the Life Guard on horseback in Stockholm.

When he returned to Berlin, he was enthusiastically celebrated. Wieprecht composed 52 works and transcribed 58 works for military music. One of his direct descendants is the well-known Berlin radio presenter Volker Wieprecht ( Radio Eins ).

The Livgardets dragonmusikkår in Stockholm still exists today from the former 150 Wieprecht trumpet corps of the German, Swedish and French cavalry .

Works

Works for wind orchestra (military music)

• Army March No. 133
• Three marches to catch up with the Prince and Princess Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia
• Recovering march (for the arrival of Friedrich Wilhelm IV on September 21, 1840 in Berlin)
• Friedrike Gossmann Polka
• Grand Pas-Redoublé I and II
• Homage march
• Concerto for clarinet
• March for cavalry No. 21
• March for cavalry No. 30
• My first parade march
• Military funeral parade
• Musical memories of the war years of 1813, 1814, 1815
• Overture Militair
• Pastillons polka
• Six marches for cavalry music
• Triumphal march based on themes from the 5th Piano Concerto in E flat major by Ludwig van Beethoven
• Wilhelmsmarsch
• 40 parade marches for cavalry
• 31 parade marches for the infantry

Books and writings

• Letters about Prussian military music: the instrument maker Sax in Paris as an inventor

literature

• Robert Eitner :  Wieprecht, Wilhelm Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 424 f.

Web links

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

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Wieprecht in the catalog of the German National Library