Johann Baptist Gänsbacher (1778-1844)
- Symphonie D-Dur (1807)
Performers: CappeIIa lstropoIitana; Edgar Seipenbusch (1936-2011, conductor)
Painting: Franz Anton Stecher (1814-1853) - Der Komponist Johann Baptist Gänsbacher und seine Familie (c.1838)
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Austrian composer and conductor. He was the son of a choirmaster and
teacher, Johann Gänsbacher (1751-1806), and as a boy sang in church
choirs in Sterzing, Innsbruck, Hall and Bolzano; he also had lessons in
piano, organ, violin, cello and thoroughbass. In 1795 he went to the
university at Innsbruck and studied first philosophy, then law,
supporting himself by giving music lessons, playing the organ, singing
in church choirs and playing in the theatre orchestra. His first
compositions date from this period. While at university he took part in
four campaigns against Napoleon. In 1801 he went to Vienna to continue
his musical studies, and was relieved of financial worries when Count
Firmian, who further promoted his career as a musician, took him into
his family as a son in about 1803. In Vienna he had lessons from the
Abbé Vogler (1803-4) and from Albrechtsberger (1806). A Mass in C,
composed through the offices of Vogler for Nikolaus Esterhazy in 1806,
established his reputation as a composer. Nevertheless, he returned to
Vogler in Darmstadt for a short period in 1810, where his fellow-pupils
and friends included Weber and Meyerbeer, who admitted him as a
founder-member of the ‘Harmonische Verein’, for which he was active
until 1813. In January 1813 he met Weber in Prague and recommended him
for the post of Kapellmeister of the theatre. In the summer of the same
year Gänsbacher returned to the Tyrol to join the fighting to liberate
the province from the Bavarian occupation. After the end of the war he
did not return to the Firmian family but joined the army as a first
lieutenant (1814). He was stationed first in Italian garrisons, in
Trient, Mantua and Padua then at Innsbruck in 1815, where he again tried
to gain a foothold as a musician. He worked as a conductor and director
of a church choir, and helped to found the Musikverein, though he did
not gain the position of chief conductor. He did not accept the post of
director of music in Dresden, offered him at the instigation of Weber in
1823, since (after representations against the election of Joseph
Weigl), he was appointed Kapellmeister of the Stephansdom in Vienna as
successor to Josef Preindl in September 1824. One of the choristers (who
were also his pupils) was his nephew Anton Mitterwurzer (1818-1876),
later famous as an opera singer. From this time on Gänsbacher composed
mainly church music, and only a few homage cantatas. By the time of his
death he was one of the most famous musicians in Vienna.
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