Christian Julius Weissenborn (April 13, 1837 – April 21, 1888) was a German
bassoonist, teacher and composer.
Biography
Weissenborn was born in
Friedrichs-Tanneck near
Eisenberg,
Thuringia
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
Erfurt is the capital and lar ...
. He was principal bassoonist of the
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Gewandhausorchester; also previously known in German as the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig) is a German symphony orchestra based in Leipzig, Germany. The orchestra is named after the concert hall in which it is bas ...
from 1857 to 1887. He taught at the
Leipzig Conservatory
The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig (german: Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig) is a public university in Leipzig (Saxony, Germany). Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn ...
beginning in 1882. Apart from a small canon of
Romantic works, he is chiefly remembered for his pedagogical works, the ''Practical Bassoon School'' and the Bassoon Studies, Op. 8 (which includes the "Fifty Advanced Studies"), which are still in widespread use. He died, aged 51, in
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 ...
.
Music
The ''Practical Bassoon School'' (called "Practical Method for the Bassoon" in the American editions) consists primarily of 25 sets of exercises that gradually increase in difficulty, from the most elementary level to intermediate. Following this there is a brief introduction to the
tenor clef
A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines, which defines the pit ...
and a fairly detailed discussion of various
ornaments
An ornament is something used for decoration.
Ornament may also refer to:
Decoration
*Ornament (art), any purely decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts
*Biological ornament, a characteristic of animals that appear to serve on ...
, with a 26th section applying these concepts.
The Bassoon Studies, Op. 8 is published in two parts. The first part is subtitled "For Beginners" and consists of several sections:
* I. Essential Kinds of Expression (Tenuto, Legato, Staccato, Portato, Dynamics, Accents);
* II. The Tenor Clef (brief);
* III. Scale Exercises in All Keys;
* IV. Arpeggios and chords;
* V. Chromatic scales;
* VI. Thirds, Fourths, Sixths, Octaves and Tenths;
* VII. Embellishments
The second part is the famous Fifty Advanced Studies that nearly all bassoonists are required to learn during their formative years. While some of these are at an intermediate level, most of them are quite challenging, exploring all keys and even the extreme ranges of the bassoon
Media
References
*
Famous Bassoon Tutors and Their (Less Known) Authors'. Jansen, Will. The Journal of The International Double Reed Society Number 2, 1974.
*New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Weissenborn, (Christian) Julius". 1980.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weissenborn, Julius
1837 births
1888 deaths
19th-century classical composers
19th-century German composers
19th-century German male musicians
German classical bassoonists
German male classical composers
German Romantic composers