Berlin, May 1838. A special kind of concert was in the offing at the Court Opera. A âgrand military music performance for the benefit of the distressed residents of the districts of East Prussia and Lithuania along the Polish borderâ had been announced.1 All infantry and cavalry bands of the Royal Guard Corps in Berlin were conducted by its director, Royal Chamber Musician Wilhelm Wieprecht; the military bands were augmented by the opera chorus and two actors from the local theatre. The programme featured a colourful mix of operatic overtures, including those to Christoph Willibald Gluckâs Armide and Gioachino Rossiniâs Wilhelm Tell, various kinds of marching music and two declamations delivered by actors.2
The concert, which was attended by the very highest social circles â led by King Frederick William III and his guest of honour, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia â but also by an audience of common folk, met with an extremely positive response. The Berlinische Zeitung opined that âthe assurance and precision with which every piece of music was performed were testimony both to the performersâ talent and to the diligence and meticulousness of the conductors presiding over themâ.3
This was the second joint concert by all Berlinâs military bands within a short period of time; the first had taken place four days earlier at the cityâs Schlossplatz to mark the Russian emperorâs arrival. On that occasion, in contrast to the event in the opera house, Wieprecht had conducted 16 infantry and 16 cavalry bands plus 200 drummers simultaneously in the open air â around 1,200 military musicians are said to have followed the lead of this diminutive individual in his civilian clothes as they performed the Russian national anthem and a number of marches.4 In the shape of the âmonstre (monster) concertâ, it was not long before an apt term was found for this type of event, a label that remained inextricably linked with the name of Wilhelm Wieprecht. An 1882 tribute on the tenth anniversary of his death stated that his monstre concerts had made him popular âto an unusual degreeâ: âThe way he conducted his multitude in the Hofjäger, making use of every limb, is unforgotten, and in this respect he remains one of a kind. On many hundreds of occasions, thousands laughed about his work as conductor [due to his comical conducting style], and yet the same thousands just as often rapturously applauded himâ.5
Wieprechtâs true significance to the history of the music profession lies in the reforms to military music that he initiated, a topic I will be returning to later. Less well-known, but all the more informative when it comes to musiciansâ lifeworld in the first half of the nineteenth century, is his musical career. This is because he came into contact with all the important institutions of musical life: the apprentice bands and municipal pipe bands, the municipal orchestra with its array of obligations in church, theatre and the public sphere, the court orchestra and, last but not least, the armed forces. In this prologue-like chapter, then, Wieprechtâs life as a musician serves as a guiding thread that brings out the essential characteristics of this occupational field in the Sattelzeit.6 In contrast to other accounts that emphasize the modernity of bourgeois musical life at the end of this transformative era around 1850, a focus on musicians highlights the ongoing overlap between the traditional courtly and estates-based structures of musical life and newer, bourgeois forms of commercial music. In short, the professionalization of this occupational field was far less advanced in the middle of the century than suggested by a narrow focus on a small number of musical metropolises or famous composers and performers.7
Municipal Pipe Bands
Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht was born on 8 August 1802 in Aschersleben. He was the eldest son of Friedrich Jacob Wieprecht, a cavalryman and trumpeter in the Quitzow Carbine Regiment. As a result of the Peace of Tilsit of July 1807, which incorporated this garrison town into the Kingdom of Westphalia for a few years, his father left the armed forces and attained the post of official municipal musician (Stadtmusikus).8 Wieprecht senior remained in this role until his death in 1845. His son Wilhelm, whom he first taught violin and clarinet, and later trombone, was to become his most famous student. Wieprecht juniorâs memories of this apprenticeship were quite positive: âFor four full years I was a loyal, obedient apprentice and lived under my fatherâs strict regime, which [â¦] has had a salutary effect on the rest of my life.â9
Like Wieprecht, well into the second half of the nineteenth century and beyond, countless musicians learned their trade in a municipal pipe band (or Stadtpfeiferei, to use the historically rooted term for this musical institution). From 1800 onwards, it was increasingly known as the municipal band (Stadtmusik) or council band (Ratsmusik), and an official municipal musician (Stadtmusikus) or so-called municipal musical director (städtischer Musikdirektor) was appointed to run it.10 If we look further back still, the most famous municipal pipers were undoubtedly the Bach family, though Johann Sebastian did not manage to follow in his father Ambrosiusâs footsteps as head of the municipal band in Eisenach, instead being employed mainly as an organist and cantor.11
The fathers of composers Johannes Brahms and Richard Strauss, however, illustrate that this institution, which dates back to the High Middle Ages, was still having an impact at the dawn of modernity. Johann Jacob Brahms, born in Heide (Holstein) in 1806, was an apprentice musician in his hometown as well as in the neighbouring towns of Meldorf and Wesselburen for a total of five years, before arriving in Hamburg in 1826 in a near-penniless state. He initially earned an income at the entertainment venue on the so-called Hamburger Berg â the later suburb of St. Pauli.12 And Franz Strauss, born in 1822 and long a horn soloist at the Munich Court Opera (Hans von Bülow liked to call him âJoachim on the French hornâ after the famous violinist) had begun his musical career as apprentice municipal piper to his uncle in Nabburg in the Upper Palatinate. At an advanced age, when his asthma made it impossible for him to play the horn, he benefited once again from his broad musical training, joining the viola section of his orchestra without further ado.13
Yet the municipal band around 1800 no longer had a great deal in common with the old institution of the municipal pipe band â and as the century wore on the common ground diminished further. The latter had emerged here and there in the Holy Roman Empire from the fourteenth century onwards and, on a broader basis, in the mid-sixteenth century out of councilsâ need for music to representative ends.14 Municipal pipers were recruited mainly from among the hordes of itinerant minstrels, who thus became more settled and gained permanent employment. In the early modern period, the pipersâ main tasks included sounding the daily fanfare (Abblasen) from the municipal tower, providing a musical framing for council events such as elections or visits from rulers, playing market music, framing church services and providing musical training in accordance with guild regulations, that is, in the form of apprenticeships and the training of journeymen. In return, the pipe bands gained a musical monopoly within a given municipality, including the right to participate in annual processions, crowned by the New Yearâs parade. Municipal musiciansâ exclusive right to perform music within a town or city ensured them a certain, though usually rather meagre, income. Employment by the municipality entailed a salary in certain places, while in others it merely involved the adventitious provision of items such as wood, grain, clothing or free beer â and sometimes these musicians received no material compensation at all.15
After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the institution of the guild-based municipal band faced a stern test in many places. Amid the general pressure to modernize triggered by the French Revolution and the advance of Napoleon, reformers targeted trade and industrial policy. In Prussia, it was primarily financial motives that prompted State Chancellor Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg to introduce a general trade tax, and thus indirectly freedom of trade, in the autumn of 1810, whose precise form was laid down only a year later. The edicts of 1810â11, based on the French or Westphalian model, did not abolish the guild system, but eliminated the privileges enjoyed by guild members vis-aÌ-vis their freelance counterparts, which gave the latter the right to take on apprentices and journeymen. In the shape of freelancing musicians, this created additional competition for the municipal pipe bands within musical life. Until then, they had shared their field of work mainly with musicians in the princely court orchestras and licensed theatre orchestras.16
Even so, it is astonishing how early the academic literature places the decline of municipal music and how much it associates such music with derogatory evaluations of quality. With a focus on Munich, Walter Salmen locates the âdeclining âtrade of municipal musicianâ at the beginning of the nineteenth centuryâ chiefly in the inn and, among other things, cites âwaning professional ethicsâ and âinadequate trainingâ as reasons for this development.17 Heinrich W. Schwab, meanwhile, has municipal pipe bands dying out virtually in parallel with the French Revolution. Freedom of trade, along with the mounting technical requirements of classical and romantic compositions, âled to the replacement of the old Stadtpfeifer â the all-round musician â by a new type, the specialist, whose education was provided by the newly established conservatories of musicâ, Schwab asserts.18
In contrast, Wieprechtâs career is an impressive and exemplary case demonstrating that municipal music remained an important point of reference in musiciansâ lifeworld even in the first half of the nineteenth century. After four years of apprenticeship under his father, with the active support of clarinet virtuoso Johann Simon Hermstedt, Wieprecht made the leap to the city of Leipzig in Saxony. Hermstedtâs letter of recommendation did not prompt Leipzigâs official municipal musician Wilhelm Leberecht Barth to offer Wieprecht a job but did at least result in a successful referral to his colleague Johann Gottlieb Zillmann in Dresden, where he started work in November 1821. In this royal capital, between the daily beer hall concerts and dance events, Wieprecht made the acquaintance of court conductor Carl Maria von Weber while providing stage music for an operatic performance. On his recommendation, he was fortunate enough to receive lessons from Louis Haase, a violinist in the court orchestra.
But his stint by the Elbe also made the young Wieprecht familiar with the dark side of a municipal musicianâs life. First, a three-week period of national mourning was detrimental to his finances as musical entertainment was prohibited for the duration. Lent followed shortly afterwards, with another ban on the playing of music. As a result, his basic salary fell to a meagre twelve groschen a week, and many of his fellow apprentices took to their heels.19
After almost nine months, Wieprecht moved on as well. He was steered back to Leipzig by official municipal musician Leberecht Barth, ushering in what he himself described as a happy period of his life. In Leipzig, he had the opportunity to play trombone in the theatre orchestra, received lessons at no cost from the concertmaster of the theatre and concert orchestra, August Matthaei, and played violin at concerts in the Gewandhaus. Through Matthaei, he also gained access to Leipzigâs elite social circles. The more he frequented them, to cite Wieprechtâs own words, âthe more painfully aware I was of the shortcomings in my academic education. Only then did I feel deeply that, despite my practical experience, I was more craftsman than true musician (Tonkünstler)â.20
But this municipal musician was soon receiving private lessons in German, literature, geography and history, and even attended lectures by philosopher and music historian Johann Amadeus Wendt, who was the first to apply the term âclassical periodâ to music history, that is, to the Viennese trio of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.21 He described everyday life in the Barth household on Stadtpfeiffergässchen (âCity Pipersâ Laneâ) as pleasant; the shared mealtimes had âmost beautifully expressed the sense of togetherness that we all feltâ. At last, he felt that his work was in some measure appreciated: on holidays, he stated, the mayor visited the council band in person, serving the musicians wine.22
Municipal Theatres
While Wieprechtâs social activities between guild room and scholarly circles were certainly something very special at the time, the radius of his professional activities between beer hall and concert hall was far from unusual. The history of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, in whose concerts Wieprecht participated as a journeyman violinist for two years, points up the still fluid nature of the transitions between council band and concert ensemble as well as between service for theatre and church in the first half of the nineteenth century. We can also discern how the old municipal band became an important nucleus for the formation of the modern symphony orchestra â a process of transformation that Leipzig experienced relatively early but that continued into the twentieth century in some parts of Germany.23
Around half the members of the so-called GroÃes Konzert (Grand Concert) ensemble, which was founded in 1743 in Leipzig on the private initiative of a concert society, were former municipal musicians. The other half was made up of members of the student orchestra, probably being conducted by Johann Sebastian Bach at the time.24 While the associated series of concerts, which was financed mainly by Leipzig businessmen, had to be suspended repeatedly a few years later due to the Seven Yearsâ War and the famine, a privately run theatre orchestra was formed around the same time on the occasion of a guest performance by an Italian opera company. Such theatre groups came to town so regularly that the new orchestra was always busy. In any case, for the most part the same musicians played in it as in the concert orchestra, partly because the municipal musicians were unable to put together an orchestra under their own steam.25
While the concert society revived the GroÃes Konzert in August 1781, moving it into the Gewandhaus, a trading house for cloth makers and wool merchants that had been expanded to host concerts, the concert and theatre orchestras initially remained loosely organized. It was pending negotiations with Italian theatre entrepreneurs that prompted more than twenty musicians to sign a reciprocity contract in July 1786, which established a âmusical society united in pursuit of the highest of aimsâ.26 This contract regulated staffing issues, laid down disciplinary and organizational rules for the theatre orchestra and established a pension fund financed by membership fees, charitable events and endowments. Though eventually the only significant provision that remained was the pension fund, this founding document marked a turning point for the Leipzig musicians: it heralded a new self-conception as a permanent orchestral entity and as a solidary musical community.27
Among the twenty-one founding members were the four municipal pipers and three violinists, so-called Kunstgeiger, who formed the Leipzig council band at the time.28 Their main task, in addition to sounding the fanfare from the town hall, was to play church music at the weekend. In the wake of a reform, in 1805 the council band was not only centralized, but also enlarged and linked even more closely with the theatre and concert orchestra. The four municipal pipers and three violinists were replaced by a single official municipal musician (Stadtmusikus), who was given overall control and was responsible for running an educational institute organized on a guild basis. In addition, in the shape of concertmaster Matthaei, cellist Friedrich Dotzauer and double bassist Karl Gottfried Wach, the three best strings in the concert orchestra were turned into church musicians and were thus permanently employed by the city.29
The idea that this reform was a reaction to a decline in quality in the municipal band, as repeatedly suggested in the literature,30 appears doubtful. First, violinist Gottlob Anton Maurer, a veteran municipal musician, was appointed as head of the reformed institution. Second, all the municipal musicians also played in the concert orchestra. And third, there are some indications that, for reasons of prestige, the city fathers wished to listen to the best musicians not only at concerts and in the theatre, but also at church services. Hence, rather than looking to compensate for declining standards, they sought to enhance the council bandâs artistic status.
In line with this, the city showed little interest in winding up the council band. On the contrary, after Maurer had died of typhus in 1813 during the Battle of Leipzig (along with seven other orchestra members), he was succeeded by Leberecht Barth, though this entailed no change in his rights or duties. His commission of 1821 confirmed the official municipal musicianâs duties as sounding the fanfare and performing church music, while his rights comprised a monopoly on wedding, funeral and ball music.31 Against this background, it comes as no surprise that Wieprecht, as a Leipzig-based journeyman musician, had a positive view of the city fathers.
Twenty years later, however, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy came to a very different conclusion about the Leipzig Council and its music policy. In October 1839, more than four years after he had become musical director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mendelssohn addressed himself to the cityâs leaders in order to underline to them the precarious situation of his musicians. This well-travelled composer and conductor was well aware of his orchestraâs outstanding quality. In his view, while other bands had a greater number of individual virtuosos, âonly very few exhibit greater excellence when it comes to ensemble playing and musical educationâ. Furthermore, nowhere else had he âwitnessed so few examples of insubordination, disorder and coarse, immoral conductâ, behaviours of which he had had ample experience in other locations â and that he feared would come to blight Leipzig in the foreseeable future as well, should the city fail to provide greater support for the orchestra. He also believed the more gifted musicians would soon leave Leipzig unless something changed quickly.32
There were plenty of grounds for complaint. The orchestraâs obligations to play in churches, at concerts and in the theatre had further increased, due especially to the establishment of the City Theatre in 1817, while rates of remuneration had increased only negligibly. In addition, in view of the growing number of events, it was necessary to rehearse ever more often and at ever greater length. In the theatre orchestra alone, by the end of 1829, no less than sixty rehearsals had taken place since the beginning of the season in September, though the same number was envisaged contractually for the entire season.33 At the same time, the artistic demands made by composers and conductors in terms of work and interpretation grew significantly. This had serious physical effects, as concertmaster Ferdinand David reported to his conductor: âOn some days I played in the orchestra for ten hours, which left me with a bad arm, and I had to have ten leeches put on it.â34
His orchestra, as Mendelssohn continued his lament, routinely had to play at the theatre and concert hall at the same time, which made the use of substitutes indispensable. However, he explained, these were hard to come by, since neither the municipal band nor other freelance musicians could be forced to play, and commercial music-making was far more lucrative. Meanwhile, Mendelssohn sometimes spotted his musicians, whose contractual duties were far greater than those of the municipal ensemble, immediately after a concert at an inn, where they played âwaltzes and marchesâ, walked around with their hats and âcollected more than double the amount they had earned from the concertâ.35
In view of this precarious situation, Mendelssohn called on the council to require another orchestra, the so-called Vereinigtes Musikchor,36 to carry out substitute service in the theatre and to engage the services of the Gewandhaus Orchestra as a whole to perform in churches, for which the city should provide an annual pay rise of 500 thalers.37 The problem of substitute service for the theatre, however, initially went unresolved. It was not until 1864 that the Gewandhaus musicians were exempted from playing interludes.38 But when it came to his pecuniary demands the city fathers were more willing to listen to Mendelssohn, though of course they imposed conditions of their own. In return for the new funds, the council secured the right to administer and oversee the orchestraâs pension scheme. As a result, in 1840 the Gewandhaus Orchestra was finally transformed from a private theatre and concert orchestra into a âmunicipal orchestraâ that was recognized and subsidized by the council and that now exclusively provided church music â the municipal bandâs original, core function.39
It is futile to discuss whether the municipal orchestras that emerged in many parts of Germany in the course of the nineteenth century ousted the municipal band, as in Leipzig, or whether the municipal band reinvented itself as an orchestra.40 More important when it comes to Leipzig is the finding that by the middle of the century these institutions were still closely interwoven in terms of personnel and function. From a social and economic point of view, then, it was by no means necessarily more appealing to be an orchestral musician than to play in the municipal band. In fact, the new municipal orchestra, the direct successor to the municipal band, formed in 1840 and consisting of 27 musicians, constituted the true core of the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra, and only these 27 signed decent contracts featuring pension entitlements. The remaining 15 (later 27) musicians hired by the theatre company completed the renowned ensemble, but with significantly worse conditions and with no prospect of a pension.41
Furthermore, the musiciansâ brief average stint in the orchestra demonstrates that the working conditions at the Gewandhaus were anything but satisfactory. This is also evident in individual biographies, such as that of flautist Christian Gottlieb Belcke, who left the Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1832 to take up the post of official municipal musician in Lucka, or violist Christian Matthies, who tried and failed to obtain such a position in Greiz in 1861.42 Hence, by mid-century, if at all, we can discern merely the beginnings of a clear job hierarchy within the music world that tied income and social prestige to certain musical institutions.
Typologizing accounts that seek to make qualitative contrasts between the municipal pipe band and the concert orchestra thus fail to capture the historical realities of many musiciansâ lives in the nineteenth century. This is also apparent in the education system of the time. In 1840, for instance, around half the musicians in the Gewandhaus Orchestra had still received their training from an official municipal musician or in a municipal pipe band, and many of them, like Wieprecht, had been both municipal musician and orchestra member before the municipal orchestra was established. The founding of the Leipzig Conservatoire (Leipziger Konservatorium) in 1843, which took place thanks to Mendelssohnâs efforts, did little to change things for up-and-coming musicians in the first instance: this establishment initially dedicated itself mainly to the training of soloists, such that relatively few of its graduates found their way to the Gewandhaus.43
Last but not least, musicians from both institutions largely drew on the same repertoire. While that of the municipal band traditionally encompassed all genres, from so-called utility music (Gebrauchsmusik) to concerts, the Gewandhaus Orchestra provided musical entertainment during theatre service in the shape of vaudevilles and Viennese farces (Wiener Possen), among other things, as Mendelssohn reported.44 In fact, orchestra members appeared so often at private entertainments that it led to disputes with the official municipal musician, who felt his privileges were being infringed.45 Hence, the Gewandhaus musicians were anything but tied to a particular genre.
As is well known, the Gewandhaus Orchestra gained an excellent reputation as a first-class concert orchestra in German territories and beyond during the Sattelzeit. Not least because of this reputation, it drew Mendelssohn Bartholdy, in the words of musicologist Richard Taruskin, âperhaps the nineteenth centuryâs most important â and successful â civic musicianâ,46 to Leipzig in 1836. In view of this artistic excellence, it is all the more surprising that the socio-economic circumstances in Leipzig were so straitened and that the maintenance of boundaries with other musical worlds proved virtually impossible in practice. If not at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, where could one have expected to find a well-funded orchestra specializing in classical music in Germany around 1850?
Court Orchestras
Of course, Leipzig was not a royal seat, and the Gewandhaus was not a court orchestra such as the Royal Berlin Court Orchestra (Königliche Berliner Hofkapelle), to which Wilhelm Wieprecht moved in May 1824 after almost two years in Leipzig. He hoped that this would advance his career and he was evidently a beneficiary of the court orchestraâs expansion; it had grown from 60 to over 90 permanent positions since Gaspare Spontini took up the position of chief music director (Generalmusikdirektor) in 1820.47 Compared to Leipzig, however, Wieprecht found work at the court orchestra far less varied, describing it as âa daily monotonyâ, and he also criticized the lack of discipline. Generally, he contended, symphonic music did not get its fair share of performance time and usually took place only in bits and pieces during theatrical interludes, when it attracted âvery little attentionâ. He also found his financial situation highly unsatisfactory.48
Wieprechtâs descriptions of the court orchestra are consonant with the picture painted by musicology, according to which the ensemble was regarded as the conservative element par excellence in Berlinâs musical life at the time. Spontini even tended to put concertmaster Carl Moeser in charge of Beethovenâs symphonies; while the latter deployed musicians from the court orchestra in these concertos, this was not part of its official programme.49 However, there was no inevitable aesthetic gap between musical institutions serving different parts of society. Even social hierarchies were by no means firmly bound to these institutions. Musicologist Christoph Henzel has already drawn attention to the fundamental ambivalences of court musicianship: high social prestige was paired with an uncertain post that depended on the whims of the ruler and could be terminated from one day to the next.50 This dependency was expressed not least in the fact that in the nineteenth century court musicians were still sometimes used as cupbearers or had to serve at table, reflecting their classification as court servants. In addition, the salary level differed considerably from one court to another: while Christoph-Hellmut Mahling assumes that average court musicians were usually in the middle of the court hierarchy and thus made a good living, in Darmstadt, for example, monetary salaries for musicians were not even introduced until 1819, and municipal musicians in Württemberg around 1800 earned significantly more than their counterparts at court.51
As court theatres were placed in public hands, opened to the general public and subjected to market forces over the course of the nineteenth century, court musicians then began to lose social prestige, although in some places this was offset by greater job security. In the Prussian court orchestra, where Wieprecht found employment, by 1811 Frederick William III had already abandoned the aristocratic organizational approach to the orchestra as a fully financed representative institution and had introduced the principle of merit. The orchestra was obliged to perform regular theatre duties and had to generate a large part of its budget through public ticket sales. This was paralleled by a reduction in salaries along with a significant increase in work; the quid pro quo was a secure, permanent position.52
Looking back over the first half of the century, however, cultural historian and folklorist Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl discerned a far more fundamental loss of status for many court musicians. An early cultural pessimist, in his 1851 book Bürgerliche Gesellschaft (âBourgeois Societyâ), the second part of his four-volume Naturgeschichte des deutschen Volkes (âNatural History of the German Peopleâ), Riehl perceived the emergence of a âfourth estateâ, which he called the âintellectual proletariatâ and which, he stated, was recruited to a significant degree from among former court musicians:
It is among musicians that we first encounter a fully developed artistic proletariat. While it is hardly customary to evaluate artistic developments from a social standpoint, there can be little doubt, for example, that the collapse of the old Holy Roman Empire played no small part in the decline of an authentic German tradition of instrumental music. Once there ceased to be as many princes in the empire as days in the year, the number of court orchestras also declined, and as a consequence instrumental music became deprived of its sturdy material foundation. The solid court musician of old became transformed into the modern touring virtuoso, and with this change in social position the methods and aims of instrumental music as a whole became completely distorted.53
Although the musical lifeworld at court varied depending on the coffers and a given rulerâs enthusiasm for art, and must therefore be assessed on a case by case basis, by and large â with Riehl â it is fair to say that from the dawn of the bourgeois era to the second half of the nineteenth century, even musicians who played in court orchestras had little prospect of improving their social and economic position. Whether employed at court, by a municipality or privately, orchestral musicians generally failed to join the ranks of their increasingly bourgeois audience. Instead, regardless of their growing professional self-image as artists, they remained on the same social level as wage labourers and craftsmen.54 Riehlâs evocation of the âfourth estateâ seems somewhat exaggerated with respect to the middle of the century; as a prophetic vision of the future, it was spot on.
Military Bands
In view of the lifeworld at court, it is understandable that Wieprecht looked around for other fields of activity that might provide him with additional income. Shortly after his arrival in Berlin, he discovered one such option in the shape of military music. The garrison city of Berlin provided ideal conditions for this. Around 1820, the armed forces, with more than 16,000 soldiers, made up around 8 percent of Berlinâs total population of about 200,000. By about 1850, thirteen guard regiments were stationed on the Spree.55 Marching and strolling soldiers, then, were a common sight in the cityscape, just as their music shaped the urban soundscape. In fact, Wieprecht experienced a profound sense of awakening when he heard an infantry band play Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartâs Figaro overture on the way to a parade.
In 1829, he received his first official appointment, to the âRegiment Garde du Corpsâ in Potsdam, where he was entrusted with instructing the trumpeters. Nine years later, in February 1838, Frederick William III appointed him director of all the Guard Corpsâ bands; the concerts held in May of the same year saw his first major appearances in this capacity. However, he not only remained a civilian, but also kept his job in the court orchestra for the rest of his life.56
Wieprechtâs musical career between municipal, court and military ensembles was more rule than exception for civilian musicians in the first half of the nineteenth century. Even military musicians experienced such hybrid scenarios at times, as Louis Spohr discovered when he took up his post as conductor at the Kassel court in 1822. There he found an orchestra made up of military and civilian musicians. Spohrâs attempts to remove the military musicians failed because they held positions for life just like their civilian colleagues. Even the composerâs request to have the entire orchestra perform in uniform or entirely without failed to sway the elector. âTo the astonishment of every foreigner visitorâ, as Spohr recalled, this âmotley orchestraâ thus existed until 1830, when the revolution resulted in the installation of a new government. In terms of quality, however, this mixture caused no problems. On the contrary, the conductor explicitly praised the military musicians as âoutstanding artistsâ.57
Wieprecht aspired to train military musicians in such a way as to make artists of them. Thanks to his activities in Berlin, Potsdam and beyond, military music and military musicians gained significantly in social importance and remained an important factor for the profession into the twentieth century. First, Wieprecht fundamentally reformed the military band. The time was ripe for such a project, not least because the introduction of compulsory military service in Prussia in 1813 and the subsequent wars of liberation made the military band accessible to broad sections of the population. With this transition to a Volksarmee or national army, the bands also grew steadily in size. The period of peace that followed the wars of liberation in Prussia and the entire German Confederation and, apart from the short-lived unrest in the central German states around 1830, ended only with the 1848 revolution, also benefited the development of the military band. This peaceful era gave Wieprecht the time he needed to try out and implement important innovations in the field of wind instrument construction.58
For example, he got the cavalry to use the new valve trumpet despite opposition from the advocates of the traditional natural trumpet, thereby expanding the musical possibilities of this branch of the armed forces and also alleviating its qualitative musical shortcomings compared with the infantry band.59 He then devoted himself to the further development of various wind instruments such that different instruments could be more easily combined with each other and in order to achieve greater tonal balance. He thus introduced new instruments while helping redesign others, such as the bass tuba, which soon became a permanent feature of the symphony orchestra.60 Finally, Wieprecht provided a new instrumental system in which all the instruments used in the various military music formations could be integrated into one score. It was by standardizing and modernizing military music in this way that Wieprecht laid the ground for military bands to penetrate the public sphere.61
Second, Wieprecht went beyond this groundwork, deploying all his creative energy to secure a prominent place for the military band in German musical life. He was active as a composer and, perhaps even more importantly, as a tireless arranger. While even his own compositional work did not focus exclusively on marches and other military music, but also included instrumental fantasies and solo concertos, the original templates for his arrangements were all operatic overtures and symphonies from the First Viennese School and the Romantic genre.62 In short, to a substantial degree it was down to this bandmaster in civilian dress that the military band was removed from the straightjacket of pure utility music and opened up to the repertoire of the classical concert. Together with the improvement in the quality of these ensembles, this programmatic expansion palpably enhanced the status of military music within society, as reflected, for example, in the praise heaped upon Wieprechtâs musical activities by Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt.63
Unlike the bourgeois concert, the military music concert strove not for social distinction but for a position at the centre of society.64 Thanks in part to Wieprechtâs reforms, his compositions and arrangements, the military concert soon became part of Berlinâs everyday musical life. In summer especially, a military band could be heard in almost every public garden. While it is fair to say that Wieprecht is the best-known figure associated with events of this kind, he was by no means the first. The pioneer of the garden concert was Friedrich Weller, but numerous other local heroes and guests from abroad, such as Austrian âmilitary music marvelâ Josef Gungl, ensured that the Berlin audiences were kept entertained.65
Third and finally, in addition to popularizing marching and art music, for Wieprecht these concerts served another purpose: he considered regular public performances by military musicians a crucial part of a holistic musical education. In line with this, a posthumous appraisal of the conductor stated that âanother well-conceived result of the aforementioned Wieprechtian supervision of the Prussian armyâs distinct training in tonal art is that the musicians are permitted to practice their art in public entertainment venues as a side-lineâ.66
But this is not the only indication of Wieprechtâs deep concern for up-and-coming (military) musicians and his focus on quality assurance and improvement. He was one of the first to advocate systematic training for bandmasters. Though he was unable to implement his plan to establish a conservatoire for military conductors at court,67 his socio-political engagement on behalf of military musicians fell on more fertile ground. For example, he established a widowâs fund for the surviving dependents of deceased military musicians and in 1859 he set up a pension fund for bandmasters in the Prussian army.68
In sum, Wieprecht had a dual influence on the occupation of musician. First, he helped anchor military music in public space, and second, he sought to improve military musiciansâ skills as well as their social and economic position. His reforms reached far beyond the garrison, both socially and musically, âsuch thatâ, as Celia Applegate pithily states, âat some point it becomes impossible to say whether military music was pacified or civilian music was militarizedâ.69
Musiciansâ Lives in the Sattelzeit
The highly decorated Wieprecht died in August 1872, shortly before his seventieth birthday. His popularity in Prussia knew no bounds and his expertise in the field of military music was in demand far beyond its borders. He is even said to have worked for the government of Guatemala as a military music advisor.70 Regardless of the prominent status achieved by this bandmaster in civilian dress, his early musical life at least can be viewed as typical of the time and is illustrative of the professional lifeworld of many musicians in the first half of the nineteenth century. This realm was characterized by an educational practice that was as yet barely institutionalized, often rested on personal connections and thus opened up multiple paths to the music profession. This also meant that the boundary between the latter and the amateur world remained rather blurred. When Mendelssohn arranged for a performance of Johann Sebastian Bachâs St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829 for the first time in around a century and a half, the orchestra consisted of both chamber musicians from the court orchestra and amateur musicians.71 In addition, a wide range of employment opportunities was open to musicians, and as yet no clear hierarchy had emerged among the various employing institutions in terms of working conditions, remuneration and social prestige. In any case, only very few musicians had specialized in a specific genre.
From the perspective of musicians as an occupational group, these unprofessional, premodern elements characterized German musical life in the first half of the nineteenth century at least as much as the modernizing forces highlighted in the relevant literature, namely the commercialization of the music business and the associated shift into the public sphere; the rise of the bourgeois concert and the diversification of performance venues; the aesthetic invention of art music and its demarcation from folk and popular music; the emergence of a proto-scholarly music discourse; and last but not least, the professionalization of the occupation.72 With Reinhart Koselleck, it is important to recall the persistent elements of the Sattelzeit and to emphasize the structuring (rather than transformative) power of the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous. For many musicians, the spheres of experience and expectation were still fairly closely aligned.73 If we read the founding of professional associations as a conscious strategy to create new horizons of expectation that diverged from previous experiences, in other words, to focus specifically on social advancement, then musicians only moved beyond their previous experiential realm around the middle of the century in significant numbers. How this change in consciousness took place and, as a result, how a professional group in the true sense of the term was formed and organized in the first place is my focus in the next chapter.
âKönigliche Schauspieleâ, Königlich privilegirte Berlinische Zeitung von Staats- und gelehrten Sachen no. 110, 13 May 1838.
Ibid.
âMilitairisches Concert im Opernhauseâ, ibid. no. 115, 18 May 1838; see also Kalkbrenner, A., Wilhelm Wieprecht. Direktor der sämmtlichen Musikchöre des Garde-Corps. Sein Leben und Wirken nebst einem Auszug seiner Schriften, Berlin 1882, 26 f.
See Höfele, B., Die deutsche Militärmusik. Ein Beitrag zu ihrer Geschichte, Cologne 1999, 129 f.
Newspaper article, undated (1882), in SBB Slg. Darmstaedter 2r 1835 Wieprecht, fol. 8; on his busy schedule of concert work at the Hofjäger and other Berlin entertainment venues, see Jansen, W. and R. Lorenzen, Possen, Piefke und Posaunen. Sommertheater und Gartenkonzerte in Berlin, Berlin 1987, 137â144.
The research interest in Wieprecht has recently grown considerably beyond the history of military music as narrowly conceived. See for example Applegate, C., âMen with Trombonesâ, in Applegate, C., The Necessity of Music: Variations on a German Theme, Toronto 2017, 311â366. His letters and writings were recently edited; see Hofer, A. and L. Schiwietz (eds.), Wilhelm Wieprecht (1802â1872). Korrespondenz, Schriften und Dokumente zu Leben und Wirken, Würzburg 2020.
See for example Weber, Music and the Middle Class, 42â44 and 133 f. In the preface to the second edition, however, Weber qualifies his assumption of modernization somewhat. A similar argument is put forward by Blanning, Triumph, 30â57; see also Kaden, C.,ââProfessionalismus in der Musikâ â eine Herausforderung an die Musikwissenschaftâ, in Kaden, C. and V. Kalisch (eds.), Professionalismus in der Musik, Essen 1999, 17â31.
See Applegate, âMenâ, 213 f.
Kalkbrenner, Wilhelm Wieprecht, 6â8, quotation on 8.
On the terminology, see Wolschke, Stadtpfeiferei, 68.
On the Bach family, see Wolff, C., Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. Oxford 2001, 13â32. When Ambrosius died in February 1695, Johann Sebastian was only nine years old; see ibid., 33 f.
See Hofmann, K., âSehnsucht habe ich immer nach Hamburg â¦â: Johannes Brahms und seine Vaterstadt. Legende und Wirklichkeit, Reinbek 2003, 9â16.
See Walter, M., Richard Strauss und seine Zeit, Laaber 2000, 35â37.
Lüneburg (1335) and Frankfurt am Main (1348) are considered to be the first towns in the Holy Roman Empire to employ musicians. Beyond its borders, the evidence points to the same development at an earlier stage in Florence (1291) and Ypres (1297). See Schwab, H. W., âStadtpfeiferâ, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 24, edited by S. Sadie, Oxford 2001, 252â254, here 252.
See Wolschke, Stadtpfeiferei, 17â24; Michel, P., âDie Ausbildung des Orchestermusikers im 19. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Musikerziehung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Verhältnisse in Thüringenâ, Dissertation Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 1957, 6.
For a general account of the pressure to modernize, see Möller, H., Fürstenstaat oder Bürgernation. Deutschland 1763â1815, Berlin 1998, 595â632. On the trade regulations in Prussia, see Quante, C., âDie geistesgeschichtlichen Grundlagen und die Entwicklung der Gewerbefreiheit in Deutschlandâ, Dissertation Universität Münster 1984, 45â55. Details can be found in Mascher, H. A., Das deutsche Gewerbewesen von der frühesten Zeit bis auf die Gegenwart, Potsdam 1866, 484â495.
See Salmen, Beruf, 139 f.
Schwab, âStadtpfeiferâ, 253.
See Kalkbrenner, Wilhelm Wieprecht, 10â13.
Ibid., 15.
As for example in Wendt, J. A., Ãber den gegenwärtigen Zustand der Musik besonders in Deutschland, und wie er geworden, Göttingen 1836, 3. See also CheÌvremont, A., âLâeÌmergence de la notion de classique dans la musique chez Amadeus Wendt (1783â1836)â, Cahiers dâeÌtudes germaniques vol. 65, 2013, 59â72.
Kalkbrenner, Wilhelm Wieprecht, 14â16.
See chapter 5.
As Wolff, Bach, 354 surmises. Bach, however, played no role in this initiative, possibly due to an excessive workload or because of his status as Thomaskantor (musical director of Leipzigâs Thomanerchor), which may have been incompatible with private projects, but perhaps also on aesthetic grounds. See Nösselt, H.-J., Das Gewandhausorchester. Entstehung und Entwicklung eines Orchesters, Leipzig 1943, 33.
See Jung, H.-R., Das Gewandhausorchester. Seine Mitglieder und seine Geschichte seit 1743. Mit Beiträgen zur Kultur- und Zeitgeschichte von C. Böhm, Leipzig 2006, 34â36.
Forner, J. (ed.), Die Gewandhauskonzerte zu Leipzig 1781â1981, Leipzig 1981, 50; Creuzburg, E., Die Gewandhaus-Konzerte zu Leipzig 1781â1931, Leipzig 1931, 21â23; Hennenberg, F., Das Leipziger Gewandhausorchester, Leipzig 1984, 12â14.
The reciprocity contract is reprinted in Nösselt, Das Gewandhausorchester, 52â57. See also Böhm, C. and S.-W. Staps (eds.), Das Leipziger Stadt- und Gewandhausorchester. Dokumente einer 250-jährigen Geschichte, Leipzig 1993, 36. The establishment of a pension fund was, however, nothing new. A scheme of this kind had been instituted in Dresden in 1712 and in Vienna in 1771.
See the orchestral list in Nösselt, Das Gewandhausorchester, 241â256.
They ultimately occupied the three Kunstgeiger positions, since one of the violinists, Gottlob Anton Maurer, had been appointed official municipal musician and another had died; for the third, an additional position was created in the municipal pipe band. See Hempel, G., âDas Ende der Leipziger Ratsmusik im 19. Jahrhundertâ, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft no. 15, 1958, 187â197, here 189â191.
See Böhm and Staps, Leipziger, 49; Hempel, âEndeâ, 189. This supposed difference in quality is also emphasized by Spitzer, J. and N. Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650â1815, Oxford 2004, 428â433.
See Hempel, âEndeâ, 191 f.
âMendelssohn an den Rat der Stadt Leipzig, 8.10.1839â, in Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Sämtliche Briefe, vol. 7: Oktober 1839 bis Februar 1841, edited by I. Jach and L. Schiwietz, Kassel 2013, here 29 f.
See Böhm and Staps, Leipziger, 76. For a detailed treatment of the expansion of church music, see Hempel, G., âVon der Leipziger Ratsmusik zum Stadt- und Gewandhausorchester. Die Entwicklung des Leipziger Orchesterwesens in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhundertsâ, Dissertation Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig 1961, 44â50.
âDavid an Mendelssohn, 15.5.1838â, quoted in Schreiber, O., Orchester und Orchesterpraxis in Deutschland zwischen 1780 und 1850, Berlin 1938, 73.
âMendelssohn an den Rat der Stadt Leipzig, 8.10.1839â, in Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Briefe, here 35.
The Vereinigtes Musikchor was a thorn in Mendelssohnâs side, particularly because it could act freely to a great extent yet received a substantial subsidy from the municipal authorities. It had been founded in 1833 in the wake of a break-away by nine apprentices in Leberecht Barthâs municipal band who were dissatisfied with his leadership. See Hempel, âEndeâ, 192â194.
Ibid., 35 f.
See Hempel, I. and G. Hempel, â250 Jahre Gewandhausorchesterâ, in Musikstadt Leipzig 1993, edited by Rat der Stadt Leipzig, Leipzig 1993, 58â81, here 67 f. On interludes, see also chapter 2.
See Jung, Gewandhausorchester, 95â97. See also Vortrag die Verhältnisse des Stadtorchesters betreffend, erstattet von der Rathsdeputation für das Theater und Musikwesen, Leipzig 1881.
This must be determined on a case-by-case basis. In Göttingen, the orchestra gradually emerged from the municipal band. See Egdorf, B., âDie Göttinger Stadtmusik in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhundertsâ, Göttinger Jahrbuch no. 38, 1990, 127â141. The Braunschweig municipal band was scrapped in 1828, though no specific successor institution had been established. See Greve, W., Braunschweiger Stadtmusikanten. Geschichte eines Berufsstandes, 1227â1828, Braunschweig 1991, 239â245. The thesis of continuity is espoused in particular by Wolschke, Stadtpfeiferei, 67 f.
See Jung, Gewandhausorchester, 97â99 and 153â155; Vortrag, 52â55.
See Nösselt, Das Gewandhausorchester, 242 and 249; on Greiz, see Michel, âAusbildungâ, 38 f.
See Jung, Gewandhausorchester, 98. A similar argument is made by Wolschke, Stadtpfeiferei, 69â71. Wasserloos, in contrast, contends that many students took up posts at the Gewandhaus after their graduation; see Wasserloos, Konservatorium, 9.
See âMendelssohn an den Rat der Stadt, 8.10.1839â, in Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Briefe, here 31. On the municipal bandâs repertoire, see also Egdorf, âGöttinger Stadtmusikâ, 133.
See Hempel, âEndeâ, 194.
Taruskin, R., The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 3: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford 2005, 171.
See Henzel, C., âZur Professionalität des höfischen Orchestermusikers im 18. und 19. Jahrhundertâ, in C. Kaden and V. Kalisch (eds.), Professionalismus in der Musik, Essen 1999, 179â184, here 180 f.; Haedler, M., â425 Jahre Musik für Berlinâ, in G. Quander (ed.), Klangbilder. Portrait der Staatskapelle Berlin, Frankfurt am Main 1995, 11â31, here 16 f.
Kalkbrenner, Wilhelm Wieprecht, 16 f.
See Mahling, C.-H., âZum âMusikbetriebâ Berlins und seinen Institutionen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhundertsâ, in C. Dahlhaus (ed.), Studien zur Musikgeschichte Berlins im frühen 19. Jahrhundert, Regensburg 1980, 27â284, here 28â34; Haedler, â425 Jahreâ, 17 f.
See Henzel, C., âZum sozialen Status der Orchestermusiker in der preuÃischen Hofkapelle um 1800â, Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft no. 34, 1992, 76â105, here 76 f.; Mittmann, J.-P., âMusikerberuf und bürgerliches Bildungsidealâ, in R. Koselleck (ed.), Bildungsbürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert, vol. 2: Bildungsgüter und Bildungswissen, Stuttgart 1990, 237â258, here 243.
See Mahling, C.-H., âThe Origin and Social Status of the Court Orchestral Musician in the 18th and early 19th Century in Germanyâ, in W. Salmen (ed.), The Social Status of the Professional Musician from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century, New York 1983, 219â264, here 241â252; Schreiber, Orchester, 14â18.
See Henzel, âProfessionalitätâ; Henzel, âStatusâ, 94 f. Orchestral musicians occupied a relatively low position within the social hierarchy of court theatres. See Daniel, U., Hoftheater. Zur Geschichte des Theaters und der Höfe im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1995, 140â142.
Riehl, W. H., The Natural History of the German People. Translated by David J. Diephouse. Lewiston, NY 1990, 239.
See Mittmann, âMusikerberufâ, 245.
See Mahling, âMusikbetriebâ, 27 f.
See ibid., 18â25; Panoff, P., Militärmusik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Berlin 1938, 153 f. According to Höfele, however, he was soon freed from the need to perform regular orchestral duties. See Höfele, Militärmusik, 129.
Spohr, L., Lebenserinnerungen, edited by F. Göthel, Tutzing 1968, 128.
See Heidler, M. F., âMilitärreformen im Spiegel der Militärmusikâ, in: K.-H. Lutz (ed.), Reform â Reorganisation â Transformation. Zum Wandel in deutschen Streitkräften von den preuÃischen Heeresreformen bis zur Transformation der Bundeswehr, München 2010, 523â543. here 523â529; Müller, R., and M. Lachmann, Spielmann â Trompeter â Hoboist. Aus der Geschichte der deutschen Militärmusiker, Berlin 1988, 26â33; Kandler, G., âZur Geschichte der deutschen Soldatenmusikâ, in B. Schwertfeger and O. Volkmann (eds.), Die Deutsche Soldatenkunde, Leipzig 1937, 472â523, here 486â490. On 1830 and 1848, see Mommsen, W. J., 1848, die ungewollte Revolution. Die revolutionären Bewegungen in Europa, 1830â1849, Frankfurt am Main 1998, 49â52 and 108â120.
See Höfele, Militärmusik, 121 f.; Müller and Lachmann, Spielmann, 30.
See Cottrell, S., The Saxophone, New Haven 2013, 41 f.; Kalkbrenner, Wilhelm Wieprecht, 88â97.
See Höfele, Militärmusik, 122â125 and 132 f. What I have in mind here is the bugle music of the infantry battalions, the trumpet music of the cavalry and artillery regiments, the French horn music of the light infantry battalions (Jäger-Bataillone) and engineer battalions (Pionier-Bataillone) and the Janissary music of the infantry regiments. This tableau enabled different formations to make music together and thus made Wieprechtâs large-scale events centred on military music possible in the first place.
See Kalkbrenner, Wilhelm Wieprecht, 69â72. Among other things, Wieprecht arranged five symphonies by Beethoven and Mozartâs Jupiter symphony for military music ensembles.
See Müller and Lachmann, Spielmann, 31; Michel, âAusbildungâ, 164. On Berlioz, see Jansen and Lorenzen, Possen, 104 f.; Liszt was extremely gratified that Wieprecht wished to arrange his symphonic poem Tasso for military music. See Kalkbrenner, Wilhelm Wieprecht, 52 f.
Friedrich Deisenroth, head of the Bundeswehrâs Staff Band (Stabs-Musikkorps) in the early days of West Germany, went so far as to compare the role of military bands in the nineteenth century with the phonograph record and radio in the twentieth century. See Deisenroth, F., Deutsche Militärmusik in fünf Jahrhunderten. Die Entwicklung von der Feldmusik zur modernen Militärmusik, Wiesbaden 1961, 26 f.
Jansen and Lorenzen, Possen, 125â130, quotation on 125; see also Chop, M., Geschichte der deutschen Militärmusik, Hannover 1925, 15 f.
See A. L. Rode, âDer alte Wieprecht. Skizzeâ. Offprint of article in Deutsche Landes-Zeitung, Berlin 1878, in SBB Slg. Darmstaedter 2r 1835 Wieprecht, fol. 6; see also Kalkbrenner, A., Musikalische Studien und Skizzen, Berlin 1903, 24.
See Panoff, Militärmusik, 155. It was not until the summer of 1874 that a special training programme for military musicians was instituted at the Hochschule für Musik zu Berlin. See chapter 3.
See Chop, Geschichte, 23; newspaper article, undated (1882), in SBB Slg. Darmstaedter 2r 1835 Wieprecht, fol. 8; âBekanntmachung Nr. 266 âEmpfehlung der Pensions-Zuschuss-Kasse für die Musikmeister der Armeeââ, Armee-Verordnungsblatt no. 7, 1873, 251.
Applegate, âMenâ, 233.
See Kalkbrenner, Wilhelm Wieprecht, 49.
See Applegate, Bach, 33. In Leipzig too, amateurs were still used in concerts, theatre and church during this period. See Hempel, âRatsmusikâ, 47â50.
For a recent treatment of commercialization, see Bashford, C., âIntroduction: The Idea of Art Music in a Commercial Worldâ, in Bashford, C., and R. Montemorra Marvin (eds.), The Idea of Art Music in a Commercial World, 1800â1930, Woodbridge 2016, 1â16; see also Kaden, âProfessionalismusâ, 28â30. On the concert, see Gramit, D., Cultivating Music: The Aspirations, Interests, and Limits of German Musical Culture, 1770â1848, Berkeley 2002, 125â160. On processes of demarcation, see Gelbart, Emerging Categories. For the essentials, see the early work by Sponheuer, Musik als Kunst.
See Koselleck, R., âEinleitungâ, in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, edited by O. Brunner et al., Stuttgart 1972, xiiiâxxvii, here xiv f.; Koselleck, R., ââErfahrungsraumâ und âErwartungshorizontâ â zwei historische Kategorienâ, in Koselleck, R., Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten, Frankfurt am Main 1989, 349â375, here 359â366.