Heinrich Marschner

Heinrich Marschner was a German composer and conductor, and a major figure in German opera in the mid-19th century. He also composed incidental music, chamber music, and hundreds of songs. He was born in Zittau, Germany in 1795 and his father was a respected ivory craftsman. From 1804 to 1813, Marschner attended school at the local gymnasiums. His education also included music lessons with Karl Gottlieb Hering, August Bergt, and Friedrich Schneider. He composed his first theatrical work in 1810, the ballet Die stolze Baurerin, and it was well-received at the premiere in Zittau. Although the ballet was successful, his father advised him to pursue a more stable occupation. After he graduated in 1813, he traveled to Leipzig with the intention of becoming a law student. However, he was quickly drawn into the thriving community of musicians there, and he befriended music journalists J. A. Wendt, Friedrich Rochlitz, and the publisher Friedrich Hofmeister. Marschner traveled to Vienna in 1815 with his friend Count Thaddeus Amade de Varkony, who introduced him to Beethoven. Varkony also helped him find work as a music teacher at the estate of Count Johann Nepomuk Zichy in Bratislava. Marschner taught in this capacity for almost six years, and he composed singspiels, but they were not very popular. He eventually became dissatisfied with how disconnected he was from society in his position at the Count’s estate, and he moved with his wife and son to Dresden in 1821. There, he joined a much more robust music scene and received commissions to compose incidental music from writers Heinrich von Kleist, Friedrich Kind, and Karl Gottfried Theodor Winkler. While none of these plays were very popular, he gained valuable experience and developed his technique as a composer. In 1823 he was appointed conductor of the municipal theaters in Dresden, in place of Carl Maria von Weber who was suffering from tuberculosis. After this appointment ended in 1826, Marschner and his wife worked briefly in Gdansk before traveling to Magdeburg, which was the hometown of his brother-in-law Wilhelm August Wohlbrück. Marschner and Wohlbrück agreed to collaborate on the opera Der Vampyr which was their first real success. The concept of vampires also exploited the brief but very popular Schauerromantik literary movement. Driven by the success of their first collaboration, Wohlbrück and Marschner continued to work together on two additional operas, Der Templer und die Jüdin, and Des Falkners Braut. Marschner moved with his family to Hanover in 1830, where he was appointed hofkapellmeister. It was around this time when he collaborated with Eduard Devrient on the romantic opera Hans Heiling. This proved to be Marschner’s biggest success, and it’s commonly regarded as his best work. Through the 1840s and 1850s he continued to compose operas and incidental music, but aside from the mildly successful plays Waldmüllers Margret from 1855, and Der Goldschmied von Ulm from 1856, the rest of his theatrical works were less appreciated by audiences. He was eventually forced to retire from his position in Hanover against his will in 1859, and he passed away in 1861.
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