Joseph Paul Johannes Hoch (3 May 1815 – 19 September 1874) was a German lawyer and benefactor. He willed his fortune to the

Hoch Conservatory Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium – Musikakademie was founded in Frankfurt am Main on 22 September 1878. Through the generosity of Frankfurter Joseph Hoch, who bequeathed the Conservatory one million German gold marks in his testament, a school for ...

Foundation, founded in 1878 in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

. It is, after

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

and Berlin, the seventh oldest music conservatory in Germany. He was born and died in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

Life

Hoch came from a family which had been in Frankfurt am Main for generations. All four of his grandparents had lived there. His father, the lawyer Johann Peter Hieronymus Hoch (1779 – 1831), was a magistrate and senator who, in 1829, became mayor of the

Free City of Frankfurt For almost five centuries, the German city of Frankfurt was a city-state within two major Germanic entities: *The Holy Roman Empire as the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt () (until 1806) *The German Confederation as the Free City of Frankfurt ...

. His mother, the Swiss-born Ottilie von Sodenstern, was also the child of a magistrate and senator. He began to learn piano and violin at a young age. Like his father before him, Hoch studied law and received the degree of

Doctor of Law A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor (LL ...

. At the age of 41 he married the Baroness Ottilie von Sodenstern, who would outlive him by 48 years. She died in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

in 1922. The couple had no offspring. He inherited a large fortune from both sides of his family. He decided early on, with banker

Johann Friedrich Städel Johann Friedrich Städel (1728–1816) was a German banker and patron of the arts. He founded the Städel Art Institute in his will, donating his entire fortune, art collection and house to the institute. Life Städel was born to Johann Dani ...

as his model, to bequeath enough money to his city to found an institute for education in the arts. Before he made a trip to in England in 1843, he made a first version of a will with this intention, which was completed on 14 July 1857. In his testament of 21 paragraphs, he left the Conservatory Foundation approximately one million

German gold mark The German mark (german: Goldmark ; sign: ℳ) was the currency of the German Empire, which spanned from 1871 to 1918. The mark was paired with the minor unit of the pfennig (₰); 100 pfennigs were equivalent to 1 mark. The mark was on the g ...

s. His grave can be found at the main city graveyard in Frankfurt.

References

External links

Homepage of the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoch, Joseph 1815 births 1874 deaths Jurists from Frankfurt Burials at Frankfurt Main Cemetery German philanthropists 19th-century philanthropists

Life

Further reading

References

External links