Cologne was the capital of the Rhineland province of Prussia, with the much smaller Bonn and Düsseldorf not far away. In 1856 it had a population of 100,000 and was Prussia’s third largest city after Berlin and Breslau, while Bonn and Düsseldorf had populations of 20,000 and 40,000, respectively. Instead of a Königliche Kapelle, there was the Gürzenich Orchestra, named after the building (like the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig). Ferdinand Hiller was the city’s Kapellmeister, conducting the orchestra and leading the conservatory, which he founded in 1850. Hiller was practically synonymous with Cologne’s musical institutions until his death in 1884. He was an active chamber music player as a pianist and composer (like Carl Reinecke in Leipzig), so that strings-only concerts were not prevalent unless one of the following violinists were leading the concert.
Three quartet leaders who died too young
Franz Hartmann (1809-1855) concertmaster 1839-55
Franz Hartmann kept an ensemble going throughout the 1840s, which are early years for regular quartet concerts. For the 1851-52 season he gave three concerts of three string quartets, with works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Onslow. Hartmann was student of Louis Spohr starting at age 12. He played clarinet in the band corps for his mandatory military service, and when his regiment came to Cologne in 1834, he ended up becoming the choral director of the opera and the concertmaster of the orchestra. At the time of his death from typhus fever he was a perfectly healthy man at age 46. An obituary in the Niederrheinische Musik-Zeitung by its editor Ludwig Bischoff described how the violinist was a model concertmaster in his maturity, musicianship, and insight. But his real passion was chamber music, which he managed to fit in after long days of teaching, rehearsing, and playing in the opera orchestra.
He founded the Cologne Quartet, and the long series of the noblest artistic pleasures that we owe to this association, and the well-deserved fame that it has achieved in the musical world, is largely Hartmann’s work. As a quartet player he was on a par with the best of his contemporaries, and he was surpassed by none of them; indeed, some of them, and very famous ones at that, in terms of outlook and restraint in their own virtuosity by no means come close to him. And with what indestructible love and perseverance he played quartets! How often have we witnessed that, after bearing the burden and heat of the day–he had a theater rehearsal in the morning, gave lessons in the early morning and afternoon, played a Robert le Diable or a similar opera in the evening from six to ten o’clock–that after all this he appeared in an intimate circle of friends and played two or three more quartets or quintets with a freshness and a life of his own!1
Joachim gave a concert to benefit Hartmann’s family in Hanover on 28 April 1855. It was comprised of three Beethoven quartets, one from each period: Op. 18 no. 5 in A major, Op. 59 no. 1 in F major, Op. 131 in C# minor.
Theodor Pixis (1831-56) concertmaster 1850-56
Only fifteen months later, Bischoff was writing another obituary for an even younger concertmaster. Theodor Pixis (1831-56) whose father Friedrich Wilhelm Pixis (1785-1842) led a pioneering quartet in Prague, studied with his father and with Moritz Mildner at the Prague Conservatory from 1840-46. (Probably the most famous member of the Pixis family was the pianist Johann Peter (1788-1874), Theodor’s uncle.) At age 19 Theodor became concertmaster in Cologne in 1850.2 After Hartmann’s death he joined the other members of the quartet. They gave Cologne’s first performance of Beethoven’s Op. 130 in B-flat, on 2 April 1856. He died four months later at age 25.
Yesterday evening at 10:30 Theodor Pixis, concertmaster of the orchestra here, teacher at the Rheinische Musikschule and violin virtuoso of the first rank, passed away. After an illness of barely six days, a brain seizure put an end to his young life, which was so rich in artistic gifts, and suddenly tore him out of a splendid sphere of activities and a brilliant artistic career.3
Julius Grünwald (1834-63) concertmaster 1856-63
Seven years later another concertmaster and passionate quartet player died before he reached thirty, this time of tuberculosis. Julius Grünwald (1834-63) was a student of Mildner at the Prague Conservatory from 1845-49. His first position at age 17 was at the Friedrich Wilhelmstadt Theater in Berlin in 1851. He was promoted to concertmaster in 1854; two years later he won a concertmaster position at Cologne, and also started teaching at the conservatory. His concerts for the 1858-59 season were ambitious. Bischoff described a huge public turnout for his funeral:
The sounds of mourning that accompanied the solemnly silent procession yesterday afternoon as it moved slowly through the streets of Cologne behind a laurel-wreathed coffin have faded. Hundreds of mourning friends and fellow citizens made up the procession and thousands stood in crowds, sympathizing and mourning with them, knowing and loving the man who was laid to rest, and all knew and felt with sadness that death had taken away a highly gifted and noble man in the prime of life.
At 4:30 in the early morning of April 17, the heart that filled the noblest human feeling and the highest ideal of art in life ceased to beat. He lived his most precious years quietly and modestly amongst us, he did not even seek to make a name for himself in wider circles. He refused to seek fame in the world’s cities, for he knew another duty, which he held sacred with the tender love of a son; what his simple life made it possible for him to spare – now we may say it – quietly went elsewhere. Peace to his ashes and grateful remembrance of his genius!4
In sum, although there were chamber music groups and concerts, there is not a lot of information for Cologne before the 1860s. Hartmann, the oldest of the three first violinsts, did not attend a conservatory but was a Spohr pupil; the other two were from the Prague Conservatory, where Pixis and his student Mildner promoted quartet playing. All three programed Beethoven late quartets. Mahaim has documented that Hartmann performed Op. 131 in 1852; Pixis played Op. 130 in 1856, and Grünwald performed Op. 132 in 1858.
Just imagine how much faster and with more vitality chamber music could have developed if these and other musicians had not died at the height of their musical careers. Ferdinand Laub (1832-75) had already made his mark on quartet concerts in Berlin, Vienna, and Moscow before he died of tuberculosis at age 43. Robert Heckmann (1848-91), who was based in Cologne, was giving quartet concerts in Scotland when he died of influenza, also age 43. Concertmasters Carl Hafner (1815-61) in Hamburg and Aloys Baldenecker (1833-69) in Wiesbaden had made a strong impact on their respective cities with their quartet concerts. Hafner died at age 45 and Baldenecker was only 36 when he died.
The next post continues the report on chamber music on Cologne with the well-connected and relatively long-lived Otto von Königslöw (1824-98), who put the chamber music concerts on a stable footing and kept them going from 1860-84.
Notes
- “Nachruf Franz Hartmann,” Niederrheinische Musik-Zeitung 3 (14 April 1855): 114-15.
↩︎ - Christian Fastl, Art. Pixis, Familie Johann Friedrich, in: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon online, begr. von Rudolf Flotzinger, hg. von Barbara Boisits (letzte inhaltliche Änderung: 16.8.2017, abgerufen am 20.7.2024), https://dx.doi.org/10.1553/0x0001dd39
↩︎ - Niederrheinische Musik-Zeitung 4 (9 August 1856): 259.
↩︎ - “Julius Grunwald (Nekrolog.),” Niederrheinische Musik-Zeitung 11 (25 April 1863): 129-30. ↩︎
Wonderful post, as always, Sanna!