Margarethe Stockhausen
Encyclopedia
Margarethe Stockhausen born Margarethe Schmuck, was a soprano
singer who had a distinguished career in Europe and Britain during the 1820s and 1830s. She was wife of the harpist Franz Anton Adam Stockhausen, and mother of the eminent musicians Julius
, Franz
and Henri Stockhausen.
Margarethe Schmuck was born in Guebwiller
, Alsace, the daughter of a notary. She studied singing in Paris under Giuseppe Catrufo. Her niece Josephine Bildstein also had a singing career. While in Paris Margarethe met the young harpist Franz Stockhausen (b. 1789), who was then living by teaching and performing. Franz was a friend of Sébastien Érard
and a correspondent of Beethoven's, in the circle of François-Antoine Habeneck, and shared lodgings with the violinist Christian Urhan. She married Franz in Paris in 1822 and they began a family, and they also began giving concerts together, often with Franz accompanying her on the harp. At first she became well known for her recitals of songs of Alsace, which were warmly received in Paris, and she was noted for the beauty and pearl-like quality of her voice and its spiritual conviction. She was a devout Roman Catholic.
After a year in Alsace in 1825, she returned to Paris where her son, the famous singer Julius Stockhausen, was born in 1826. In January 1827 she was named an Honorary Singer of the (French) King's Chapel, through Rochefoucauld influence. However it soon became necessary for the family to look elsewhere for an income, so they moved to London, and in May 1827 gave their first concert at the Royal Academy of Music
in a recital at which Giuditta Pasta
also sang. After this they received many bookings for soirees and private parties. They befriended Ignaz Moscheles
there. The Swiss songs made her the darling of English audiences. During the second year in London she sang a good deal in oratorio
, especially in the works of Handel
, in which she was strongly encouraged by Sir George Smart
.
In January 1829 Margarethe toured in Scotland
with Angelica Catalani
. At this time her repertoire extended to works of Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Spohr
, Carl Maria von Weber
, Mendelssohn
, Cherubini, Sapienza, Cimarosa, Fioravanti
, Mercadante
, Rossini and Meyerbeer. In the summer she sang in Manchester
and Oxford
before returning to Alsace. She came back to sing in concerts of the Philharmonic Society in London in January 1830, and over the next decade spent a great deal of time in Britain, including entire seasons in 1830, 1831, 1834 and 1835. During this time she was also having further children and, in the meantime, singing in tours of Switzerland, Alsace, the Rhineland
, South Germany, and France. In October 1830 she toured the English Midlands with Maria Malibran
and the violinist Charles de Bériot
, refusing to join her husband in an early journey by train
, between Manchester and Liverpool
, but following in the post carriage. At Manchester she was singing duets with Malibran.
In 1831, during a further tour in Scotland, she sang at Holyrood House for the Queen of the United Kingdom, and before the Duke of Devonshire
and the Duke of Wellington
. In that year the family acquired its own permanent home at Tannenfels (Baden-Württemberg), and Margerethe's parents oversaw the upbringing of her children, who attended school at Guebwiller. In 1833 Franz and Margerethe made their first German concert tour, visiting Darmstadt
, Karlsruhe
, Cologne
and Frankfurt am Main.
Margerethe's career continued in a similar vein until 1840. In January 1839 she made a major tour of Switzerland, visiting Genf, Lausanne
, Neuchâtel, Bern, and Solothurn
. After the birth of her son Henri she made her last British tour, first giving concerts in Paris and then in April moving on to London for the start of a punishing schedule. Having seen Pauline Garcia as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello
, in London, she went to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and travelled across England in all directions by rail to give concerts, except where cities such as Nottingham
and Lincoln
still demanded coach travel. In September 1839 she sang under Spohr's direction in his oratorio Calvary at the Norwich
Festival, afterwards travelling back to London with him in the same carriage. She died at Colmar
.
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
singer who had a distinguished career in Europe and Britain during the 1820s and 1830s. She was wife of the harpist Franz Anton Adam Stockhausen, and mother of the eminent musicians Julius
Julius Stockhausen
Julius Christian Stockhausen was a German singer and singing master.- Life :Stockhausens' parents, Franz Stockhausen Sr...
, Franz
Franz Stockhausen
Franz Stockhausen was a German choral conductor, and a member of a celebrated German musical family....
and Henri Stockhausen.
Margarethe Schmuck was born in Guebwiller
Guebwiller
Guebwiller is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.It is situated northwest of Mulhouse at the foot of the Vosges mountains...
, Alsace, the daughter of a notary. She studied singing in Paris under Giuseppe Catrufo. Her niece Josephine Bildstein also had a singing career. While in Paris Margarethe met the young harpist Franz Stockhausen (b. 1789), who was then living by teaching and performing. Franz was a friend of Sébastien Érard
Sébastien Érard
Sébastien Érard , born Sébastien Erhard, was a French instrument maker of German origin who specialised in the production of pianos and harps, developing the capacities of both instruments and pioneering the modern piano....
and a correspondent of Beethoven's, in the circle of François-Antoine Habeneck, and shared lodgings with the violinist Christian Urhan. She married Franz in Paris in 1822 and they began a family, and they also began giving concerts together, often with Franz accompanying her on the harp. At first she became well known for her recitals of songs of Alsace, which were warmly received in Paris, and she was noted for the beauty and pearl-like quality of her voice and its spiritual conviction. She was a devout Roman Catholic.
After a year in Alsace in 1825, she returned to Paris where her son, the famous singer Julius Stockhausen, was born in 1826. In January 1827 she was named an Honorary Singer of the (French) King's Chapel, through Rochefoucauld influence. However it soon became necessary for the family to look elsewhere for an income, so they moved to London, and in May 1827 gave their first concert at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
in a recital at which Giuditta Pasta
Giuditta Pasta
Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta , born in Saronno, Italy, was a soprano considered among the greatest of opera singers, to whom the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas was compared.-Studies and career:...
also sang. After this they received many bookings for soirees and private parties. They befriended Ignaz Moscheles
Ignaz Moscheles
Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he succeeded his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as head of the Conservatoire.-Sources:Much of what we know about Moscheles's life...
there. The Swiss songs made her the darling of English audiences. During the second year in London she sang a good deal in oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
, especially in the works of Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
, in which she was strongly encouraged by Sir George Smart
George Thomas Smart
Sir George Thomas Smart was an English musician.Smart was born in London, his father being a music-seller. He was a choir-boy at the Chapel Royal, and was educated in music, becoming an expert violinist, organist, teacher of singing and conductor...
.
In January 1829 Margarethe toured in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
with Angelica Catalani
Angelica Catalani
Angelica Catalani was an Italian opera singer, the daughter of a tradesman.At Sinigaglia, she was educated at the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, where her soprano voice soon became famous....
. At this time her repertoire extended to works of Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Spohr
Spohr
Spohr is a German surname, and may refer to:* Arnold Spohr , Canadian ballet dancer, choreographer, and artistic director of German descent* Louis Spohr , German composer, violinist, and conductor...
, Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
, Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
, Cherubini, Sapienza, Cimarosa, Fioravanti
Valentino Fioravanti
Valentino Fioravanti was a celebrated Italian composer of opera buffas.One of the best opera buffa composers between Domenico Cimarosa and Gioacchino Rossini. He was especially popular in Naples, and was the first in Italy to introduce spoken dialogue in the French manner in his works, sometimes...
, Mercadante
Saverio Mercadante
Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as impressive a number of works as either; and his development of...
, Rossini and Meyerbeer. In the summer she sang in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
before returning to Alsace. She came back to sing in concerts of the Philharmonic Society in London in January 1830, and over the next decade spent a great deal of time in Britain, including entire seasons in 1830, 1831, 1834 and 1835. During this time she was also having further children and, in the meantime, singing in tours of Switzerland, Alsace, the Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
, South Germany, and France. In October 1830 she toured the English Midlands with Maria Malibran
Maria Malibran
The mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran , was one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28...
and the violinist Charles de Bériot
Charles de Bériot
Charles Auguste de Bériot was a Belgian violinist and composer.-Biography:Born in Leuven, where there is now a street named in his honour, he moved to France in 1810, where he studied violin with Jean-François Tiby, a pupil of Giovanni Battista Viotti...
, refusing to join her husband in an early journey by train
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by steam locomotives. The line opened on 15 September 1830 and ran between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in North...
, between Manchester and Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, but following in the post carriage. At Manchester she was singing duets with Malibran.
In 1831, during a further tour in Scotland, she sang at Holyrood House for the Queen of the United Kingdom, and before the Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire
William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire KG, PC , styled Marquess of Hartington until 1811, was a British peer, courtier and Whig politician...
and the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
. In that year the family acquired its own permanent home at Tannenfels (Baden-Württemberg), and Margerethe's parents oversaw the upbringing of her children, who attended school at Guebwiller. In 1833 Franz and Margerethe made their first German concert tour, visiting Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and Frankfurt am Main.
Margerethe's career continued in a similar vein until 1840. In January 1839 she made a major tour of Switzerland, visiting Genf, Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Neuchâtel, Bern, and Solothurn
Solothurn
The city of Solothurn is the capital of the Canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. The city also comprises the only municipality of the district of the same name.-Pre-roman settlement:...
. After the birth of her son Henri she made her last British tour, first giving concerts in Paris and then in April moving on to London for the start of a punishing schedule. Having seen Pauline Garcia as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello
Otello (Rossini)
Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsi, based on Shakespeare's play Othello....
, in London, she went to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and travelled across England in all directions by rail to give concerts, except where cities such as Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
and Lincoln
Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England.The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln has a population of 85,595; the 2001 census gave the entire area of Lincoln a population of 120,779....
still demanded coach travel. In September 1839 she sang under Spohr's direction in his oratorio Calvary at the Norwich
Norwich
Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
Festival, afterwards travelling back to London with him in the same carriage. She died at Colmar
Colmar
Colmar is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.It is the capital of the department. Colmar is also the seat of the highest jurisdiction in Alsace, the appellate court....
.