Johann Baptist Gänsbacher (1778-1844)
- Requiem in Es Nro. I (1811)
Performers: Maria ErIachеr (soprano); Monika Duringеr (alt); Johannеs PuchIеitnеr (tenor); RaIf Ernst (bass);
Chor und Orchester des Akadеmischеn Musikvеrеins für Tіrol; Jοsеf Wеtzingеr (conductor)
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Austrian composer and conductor. Son of Johann Gänsbacher (1751-1806),
he studied music as a choirboy 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 (1803-04) and from Johann Georg
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 was his nephew Anton
Mitterwurzer (1818-1876), later famous as an opera singer. As a
composer, he mainly focused on church music but he also left a symphony,
a clarinet concerto as well as several chamber works and secular songs
and cantatas. He was one of the foremost composers in Vienna.
