Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski
Encyclopedia
Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski (1822–1896) was a German violinist, conductor, and musicologist.
, which soon became his favorite instrument. At age 10, he began studies at Danzig's St. Peter and Paul Academy.
On April 2, 1842, Wasielewski was accepted into the newly founded Leipzig Conservatory of Music, directed by Felix Mendelssohn
. In addition to Mendelssohn, he studied with such renowned teachers as Robert Schumann
, Moritz Hauptmann
, and Ferdinand David
. He joined the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1846 as a violinist. As a successful student, he had many avenues of opportunity, as a letter by Mendelssohn, written to Wasielewski's father on September 17, 1849, attests:
Robert Schumann called Wasielewski as concertmaster of the Düsseldorf Musikverein in 1850. He soon developed strong relations with the Schumanns, finding close expression though playing chamber music
with them in public and private.
Wasielewski found employment as a choral director in Bonn in 1852. At that time he also founded a successful piano trio
with Julius Tausch and Christian Reimers. Later, he was offered leadership of the male-voice choir the Concordia Liedertafel and the orchestra of the Beethoven Society.
Correspondence with the Schumanns until Robert's death in 1856 witnesses the intense friendly relations with the families. Schumann his Märchenbilder, Op. 113 to Wilhelm Josef and his Albumblätter, Op. 124 to Alma.
Unable to find a permanent position in Bonn, the family decided to move to Dresden in 1855 where they lived for fourteen years. Wilhelm Josef spent his time performing as a soloist with the orchestras in Dresden and Leipzig, gave music lessons, and continued his literary work. These years also saw the development of a personal relationship with the piano virtuoso and composer Franz Liszt
, who invited Wilhelm Joseph to the Altenberg in Weimar.
Wasielewski published the first biography of Schumann in 1858, which found wide recognitions and went through many editions both in Germany and abroad.
The Royal library in Dresden hosted an extensive collection of old musical manuscripts and documents, leading Wasielewski to the idea of writing a treatise on the historical development of the violin and violin playing in the various styles of different European countries. This led to the publication of the landmark work, Die Violine und ihre Meister [The violin and its players] in 1868, going through nine editions, the last, as with other works by Wasielewski, revised by his son, Waldemar von Wasielewski
.
Wasielewski finally received an appointment as municipal music director in Bonn in 1869. His first wife, Alma, died in 1871, who was buried alongside their two sons in the old cemetery. He was appointed Royal music director in 1873.
He developed good relations with composers Johannes Brahms
and Max Bruch
, as extensive correspondence shows. In 1874, Wasielewski, with another famous close friend, the violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim
, assumed directorship of performances from Clara Schumann of a music festival to commemorate a monument erected at Robert Schumann's resting place. The monument, designed by Adolf Donndorf, was unveiled on May 2, 1880.
In 1878 he was awarded an honorary membership in the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna.
At age 61, he retired to the palace town of Sondershausen
, continuing his writings on music. His late publications include a biography of Beethoven and a history of the cello
. He died on December 13, 1896 at age 74 in Sondershausen where he was buried. His memoirs were published in 1897.
(Saxony). Alma had studied with Clara Schumann
's father Friedrich Wieck. Two sons from this marriage, Wolfgang (1853–1873) and Sebastian (1855–1857) died young. The family grave in Bonn's Old Cemetery is still preserved.
Wasielewski married his second wife, Hedwig Schück (1843–1920), a pastor's daughter, in December 1874. They had three sons:
Life
Wasielewski was born on June 17, 1822 in the village of Gross, near Danzig as the eighth of eleven children of Henriette Christina Piwko (1788–1850) and Josef Thaddäus von Wasielewski (1785–1850), a landholder and later Rector of the Danzig convent school of St. Brigitta. His father gave him his first lessons in playing the violinViolin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, which soon became his favorite instrument. At age 10, he began studies at Danzig's St. Peter and Paul Academy.
On April 2, 1842, Wasielewski was accepted into the newly founded Leipzig Conservatory of Music, directed by Felix 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...
. In addition to Mendelssohn, he studied with such renowned teachers as Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Moritz Hauptmann
Moritz Hauptmann
Moritz Hauptmann , was a German music theorist, teacher and composer.Hauptmann was born in Dresden, and studied violin under Scholz, piano under Franz Lanska, composition under Grosse and Francesco Morlacchi,...
, and Ferdinand David
Ferdinand David (musician)
Ferdinand David was a German virtuoso violinist and composer.Born in the same house in Hamburg where Felix Mendelssohn had been born the previous year, David was raised Jewish but later converted to Christianity...
. He joined the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1846 as a violinist. As a successful student, he had many avenues of opportunity, as a letter by Mendelssohn, written to Wasielewski's father on September 17, 1849, attests:
Your son has excelled from the start to gain favor amongst the pupils in the institution through an excellent manner, through hard work and persistence, and through unremitting zeal. His efficient and robust temper is free from dry or affected coercion, and his musical talent and genuine love of art leads him away from wild freedom and disorder. You have given him a proper upbringing, which would have still have been insufficient without such natural traits. From no direction has there been spoken even the slightest complaint or criticism about your son. On the contrary, his progress has been so remarkable that, for example, on the violin, the concertmaster David recently remarked to me that your sone is already such a good and capable musician that, should he remain in good health, nothing could stop him in any place from gaining recognition for his own achievements and contributions to art for its own honor.
Robert Schumann called Wasielewski as concertmaster of the Düsseldorf Musikverein in 1850. He soon developed strong relations with the Schumanns, finding close expression though playing chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
with them in public and private.
Wasielewski found employment as a choral director in Bonn in 1852. At that time he also founded a successful piano trio
Piano trio
A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music...
with Julius Tausch and Christian Reimers. Later, he was offered leadership of the male-voice choir the Concordia Liedertafel and the orchestra of the Beethoven Society.
Correspondence with the Schumanns until Robert's death in 1856 witnesses the intense friendly relations with the families. Schumann his Märchenbilder, Op. 113 to Wilhelm Josef and his Albumblätter, Op. 124 to Alma.
Unable to find a permanent position in Bonn, the family decided to move to Dresden in 1855 where they lived for fourteen years. Wilhelm Josef spent his time performing as a soloist with the orchestras in Dresden and Leipzig, gave music lessons, and continued his literary work. These years also saw the development of a personal relationship with the piano virtuoso and composer Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
, who invited Wilhelm Joseph to the Altenberg in Weimar.
Wasielewski published the first biography of Schumann in 1858, which found wide recognitions and went through many editions both in Germany and abroad.
The Royal library in Dresden hosted an extensive collection of old musical manuscripts and documents, leading Wasielewski to the idea of writing a treatise on the historical development of the violin and violin playing in the various styles of different European countries. This led to the publication of the landmark work, Die Violine und ihre Meister [The violin and its players] in 1868, going through nine editions, the last, as with other works by Wasielewski, revised by his son, Waldemar von Wasielewski
Waldemar von Wasielewski
Waldemar von Wasielewski was a German writer who specialized in the occult, Goethe research, and the history of music.-Life:Wasielewski was born on December 10, 1875 in Bonn. His father, Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski , was a prominent violinist, conductor, and music editor...
.
Wasielewski finally received an appointment as municipal music director in Bonn in 1869. His first wife, Alma, died in 1871, who was buried alongside their two sons in the old cemetery. He was appointed Royal music director in 1873.
He developed good relations with composers Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
and Max Bruch
Max Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
, as extensive correspondence shows. In 1874, Wasielewski, with another famous close friend, the violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
, assumed directorship of performances from Clara Schumann of a music festival to commemorate a monument erected at Robert Schumann's resting place. The monument, designed by Adolf Donndorf, was unveiled on May 2, 1880.
In 1878 he was awarded an honorary membership in the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna.
At age 61, he retired to the palace town of Sondershausen
Sondershausen
Sondershausen is a town in Thuringia, Germany, capital of the Kyffhäuserkreis district, situated about 50 km north of Erfurt. On 1 December 2007, the former municipality Schernberg was incorporated by Sondershausen....
, continuing his writings on music. His late publications include a biography of Beethoven and a history of the cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
. He died on December 13, 1896 at age 74 in Sondershausen where he was buried. His memoirs were published in 1897.
Family
In 1852, Wasielewski married his first wife, pianist Alma Beyer (1827–1871) of FreibergFreiberg
-Places:* Freiberg, Saxony, Germany** Freiberg , Saxony, Germany** Freiberg subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp* Freiberg am Neckar, Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany...
(Saxony). Alma had studied with Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
's father Friedrich Wieck. Two sons from this marriage, Wolfgang (1853–1873) and Sebastian (1855–1857) died young. The family grave in Bonn's Old Cemetery is still preserved.
Wasielewski married his second wife, Hedwig Schück (1843–1920), a pastor's daughter, in December 1874. They had three sons:
- WaldemarWaldemar von WasielewskiWaldemar von Wasielewski was a German writer who specialized in the occult, Goethe research, and the history of music.-Life:Wasielewski was born on December 10, 1875 in Bonn. His father, Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski , was a prominent violinist, conductor, and music editor...
(1875–1959), a writer on the occult and professor of Botany who revised several of his works - Wilhelm (1878-1856), a painter and sculptor in Rome and Munich
- Felix (1880–1945), an actor, director, and dramaturgeDramaturgeA dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...
at theaters in Gotha and Munich
Works (Selection)
In addition to his numerous musical and historical writings, Wasielewski also published several compositions, the most prominent being his Notturno and Autumn Flowers, Op 30 (10 pieces for violin/viola, and piano), and a sedan song [Sedan Lied], which received brief attention from Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.- Robert SchumannRobert SchumannRobert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Dresden (1858) - Die Violine und ihre Meister, Leipzig (1869)
- Die Violine im 17. Jahrhundert und die Anfänge der Instrumentalkomposition, Bonn (1874)
- Geschichte der Instrumentalmusik im XVI. Jahrhundert, Berlin (1878)
- Goethes Verhältnis zur Musik, Leipzig (1880)
- Schumanniana, Bonn (1883)
- Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Berlin (1888) - Das Violoncell und seine Geschichte, Leipzig (1889)
- Carl ReineckeCarl ReineckeCarl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist.-Biography:Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher...
, Leipzig (1892) - Aus siebzig Jahren - Lebenserinnerungen, Leipzig (1897)