Composer Robert Volkmann

🖍 Introduction 🖍

So, I couldn’t figure out what to write about… Thankfully, Wikipedia has a “random article” button (but I still had to click it like a billion times to get something even a little interesting).

That eventually led me to Robert Volkmann, a German composer. So here’s some stuff about him.

🖍 Kingdom of Saxony 🖍

Okay, I know I said I was going to talk about Robert, but I don’t want to do that without also talking about where he was from… This is where the Kingdom of Saxony comes in.

Long before it was a kingdom, it was just the Electorate of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. Then Napoleon came by and smacked their emperor around a bit and took over. He made it the Kingdom of Saxony in 1806. It stayed a German empire until 1918, when World War I ended. I wonder if it was part of the treaty that punished Germany for being the bad guys… I’ll have to look that up later. Maybe, I’ll make a post about World War I, but I try to stay away from violence, so probably not…

🖍 Robert Volkmann 🖍

Okay, so now we get to the man. He was born in 1815, only 9 years after Napoleon beat up Emperor Francis II and took over. He learned to play organ and piano with his dad and later learned violin and cello (why does cello not have an “h” in it???) with some dude named Friebel that I will have to look up later.

By age 12, Robert was playing cello in a string quartet that played songs by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig Van Beethoven. I need to do research on those composers too. That would be a fun series I think…

In 1832, he started studying to be a teacher and actually became one after 1836 at a music school in Prague. (I will also do some research into this. Holy cow I have a lot on my plate…) In 1841, he was a piano teacher and reporter in Budapest. I don’t know how you have time to do both, but okay. From what I understand, it takes a lot of your free time to be a reporter or a teacher. How did he do both!!!?!?!

So far, our guy Robert was composing, but his music wasn’t popular. But two dudes heard his work in 1852 and thought it was amazing, so they asked him if they could play it, and obviously he said yes. (They were pretty popular people…)

In 1857, someone bought and published all his music and gave him a regular income regardless of sales, which is an AMAZING deal… So he was able to make music in peace for a bunch of years.

Then in 1875, a little bit after the publishing house went out of business, Robert was a “Professor of Harmony and Counterpoint”, whatever that means… probably music stuff I don’t understand, at Budapest National Academy of Music. He was there until he died the day before Halloween 1883.

Sad day. Not only was he only 68 (well, I guess that was a good age at the time), he didn’t even get his last year’s Halloween. Halloween is the best holiday. Maybe I’ll make a post about that too. Make it for Christmas to be silly.

🖍 Konzertstück by Volkmann 🖍

Yes, the title just means “Concert Piece”. No one ever said he gave creative names…