Franz Xaver Hauser (12 January 1794, Krasovice – 14 August 1870 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a singer, voice teacher, and music manuscript collector.

Life

Franz Hauser was born in Krasowitz (today Krasovice, part of

Kondrac Kondrac is a municipality and village in Benešov District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 500 inhabitants. Administrative parts Villages of Dub and Krasovice are administrative parts of Kondrac. Notable people ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

). At his father's insistence, he first studied medicine, but he then studied singing with

Václav Tomášek Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek (in German: Wenzel Johann Tomaschek; 17 April 1774, Skuteč, Bohemia – 3 April 1850, Prague) was an Austrian-Bohemian, by other accounts a Czech composer and music teacher. He was known as the Musical Pope of P ...

and composition with oboist

Josef Triebensee Josef Triebensee (Trübensee) (November 21, 1772 Třeboň - April 22, 1846 Prague) was a Bohemian composer and oboist. He studied composition with Albrechtsberger and oboe with his father, Georg Triebensee (January 28, 1746-June 14, 1813). He s ...

. He made his stage debut in 1817 in Prague as Sarastro in Mozart's ''

Magic Flute ''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a '' Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that inc ...

''. He found great success at the opera theaters in Vienna, Leipzig, and Berlin. He retired from the stage in 1838 and taught singing in Vienna. In 1846 he was appointed as director of the newly established conservatory in Munich (now the

Hochschule für Musik und Theater München The University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (german: Hochschule für Musik und Theater München), also known as the Munich Conservatory, is a performing arts conservatory in Munich, Germany. The main building it currently occupies is ...

), serving as its director until 1864. He retired in 1865 to

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

and two years later to Freiburg im Breisgau. Contemporary critics considered Hauser cold as an actor but approved of his pure voice. He was known for his interpretation of Weber and as Figaro (both Rossini's and Mozart's), Bertram, William Tell, and

Spohr Louis Spohr (, 5 April 178422 October 1859), baptized Ludewig Spohr, later often in the modern German form of the name Ludwig, was a German composer, violinist and conducting, conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten Sy ...

's Faust. Hauser had many students including Jenny Lind and

Henriette Sontag Henriette Sontag, born Gertrude Walpurgis Sontag, and, after her marriage, entitled Henriette, Countess Rossi (3 January 1806 – 17 June 1854), was a German operatic soprano of great international renown. She possessed a sweet-toned, lyrical voi ...

. He wrote a popular singing manual, ''Gesanglehre für Lehrer und Lernende'' (Leipzig, 1866) (freely available throug
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. As a composer, he was known for his songs. His correspondence with composer

Moritz Hauptmann Moritz Hauptmann (13 October 1792, Dresden – 3 January 1868, Leipzig), was a German music theorist, teacher and composer. His principal theoretical work is the 1853 ''Die Natur der Harmonie und der Metrik'' explores numerous topics, particular ...

was published in two volumes in 1871. Hauser's greatest significance today is as a collector of musical manuscripts –most notably of the composer

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

- assembling the greatest 19th century collection of that composer's manuscripts. He was a consultant for the

Bach-Gesellschaft The German Bach-Gesellschaft (Bach Society) was a society formed in 1850 for the express purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach without editorial additions. The collected works are known as the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausga ...

edition and prepared a thematic catalogue of Bach's works. Most of Hauser's autograph manuscripts by Bach (including 19 cantatas, the accompanied sonatas for violin, and the English suites for keyboard) were acquired by the Berlin Royal Library in 1904. Others were destroyed in 1945. Parts of his collection are also in the Darmstadt Landesbibliothek and the

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Loeb Music Library. His son, Moritz Hauser (1827–1857), became a theater director in

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was name ...

and a minor composer.

References

* Yoshitake Kobayashi: ''Franz Hauser und seine Bach-Handschriftensammlung''. Göttingen, University, Diss., 1975 * Dale A. Jorgenson: ''The life and legacy of Franz Xaver Hauser: a forgotten leader in the nineteenth century Bach movement''. Carbondale, Ill., Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1996. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hauser, Franz 1794 births 1870 deaths People from Benešov District 19th-century German male opera singers German male classical composers