
Thomas Täglichsbeck (31 December 1799 - 5 October 1867) was a German
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
ist and
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
.
Täglichsbeck was born in
Ansbach. His family settled in the region of the
Vogtland
Vogtland (; cz, Fojtsko) is a region spanning the German states of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia and north-western Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It overlaps with and is largely contained within Euregio Egrensis. The name alludes to the former ...
between
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
,
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 larg ...
and
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
, in 1800. Following violin lessons from his father, Johann Täglichsbeck, young Thomas moved to
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
where he studied with
Pietro Rovelli. In 1817 a
mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
of his, written under the supervision of
Josef Gratz, was performed in Munich. That same year, Täglichsbeck became a violinist in the Isarthortheater orchestra. Two years later, at the age of 20, he succeeded Lindpaintner as music director, making him one of the youngest conductors of the theater orchestra in Lower Saxony. In 1822 he became a solo violinist at the Munich court, which had the added advantage of freeing up his time to work on composing. On 24 August 1823 his first
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
, ''Webers Bild'', premiered at the court theater. His variations on ''La gazza ladra'' also date from this period. In 1824 he made an extensive tour of Germany, Switzerland and northern Italy; he joined the Società Filarmonica of Bergamo, where Rovelli then lived. Reviews of his concerts in the ''
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
The ''Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung'' (''General music newspaper'') was a German-language periodical published in the 19th century. Comini (2008) has called it "the foremost German-language musical periodical of its time". It reviewed musical e ...
'' (1825–32) are laudatory, although his playing in Munich in 1832 was described as ‘more charming than exceptional’.
In 1827 Täglichsbeck became the Kapellmeister to
Prince Hohenzollern-Hechingen. Under
Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Konstantin (1838–48) the court became a well-known musical centre which was visited by
Berlioz (1842) and
Liszt (1848). When political changes in 1848 eliminated the principality, Täglichsbeck was pensioned and the musicians were given paid leave. Constantine recalled Täglichsbeck from
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
in 1852 and reconstituted his orchestra at
Löwenberg. Five years later Täglichsbeck was pensioned and succeeded by Max Seyfriz. He subsequently taught composition at the
Dresden Conservatory
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the List ...
for two years, then lived for a while in Munich before retiring to
Baden-Baden in 1866. He died in Baden-Baden a year later, aged 67.
The climax of Täglichsbeck's career as a composer came with the performance of his Symphony no. 1 in E at the
Paris Conservatoire in 1836. It was a popular success, though Berlioz dismissed it as ‘academic music, and nothing more’; reviewing a performance a year later, Berlioz wrote more graciously: ‘works of this kind gain 100% on rehearing’. The opera ''König Enzio'', produced in
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. ...
in 1843, did not establish itself in the repertory. Täglichsbeck was an excellent Kapellmeister, a good if not brilliant violinist and a skilled if not very original composer.
Sources
*Albert Mell. The ''
New Grove Dictionary of Opera
''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...
'', edited by Stanley Sadie (1992). and
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taglichsbeck, Thomas
German opera composers
Male opera composers
1799 births
1867 deaths
Academic staff of the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber
German classical violinists
Male classical violinists
German violinists
German male violinists
People from Ansbach
German male classical composers
19th-century German musicians
19th-century German male musicians