… sent to study under the late Romantic composer Julius Weismann, my compositional instincts soon began to stir; these initially took on a late Romantic character, but then gave way to a new objectivity.
… at a very young age, I took theory lessons with the late Romantic composer Julius Weismann, to whom I have many personal memories. 8 November 1964

... it was with the late Romantic composer Julius Weismann that I took my first tentative steps in composition during my school years. 1974

... What captivated me about my teacher Julius Weismann was his impressionistic sound imagination, as well as his harmonic richness and formal diversity. 12 July 1981

Bertold Hummel

Dedication on the portrait photograph: “In memory of the Julius Weismann Memorial Evening on 23 February 1951” On the back of the photograph, the Weismann family thank Bertold Hummel for his participation as a cellist at the Freiburg concert. The programme includes, among other works, Weismann’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 133, and the “Tagore Songs” for alto and piano trio, Op. 67.

Julius Weismann – His Life

The son of the famous zoologist and geneticist August Weismann, a professor at the University of Freiburg and founder of neo-Darwinism, Julius Weismann was born on 26 December 1879 in Freiburg. As he was frequently ill during his youth, he was educated by private tutors and by his father. At the age of just eleven, Julius Weismann received lessons in composition and counterpoint from 1891 to 1892 in Munich from Joseph Rheinberger of Liechtenstein, who was regarded as conservative. From 1893 to 1895 he took piano lessons with Hermann Dimmler, a pupil of Liszt, in Freiburg; this was followed by language studies in Lausanne (1896–98), and for one semester (1898/99) he studied in Berlin – yet the “musically arrogant, academically pompous – and Brahms-ified – atmosphere” (Weismann) under Friedrich Stumpf and Leopold von Herzogenberg repelled him. The following three years with Ludwig Thuille, Rheinberger’s successor in Munich, furthered Weismann’s development, but they also reveal his pronounced solitary nature: “Strange that I so often grew closer to those people with whom I came into contact through a love of the mountains – music, on the other hand, usually acted as a dividing force, and I shunned those circles more often than I sought them out. Had I not found such a warm welcome in my future wife’s family, I would probably have been very lonely. In Thuille’s circle, there was but one supreme god, and that was Richard Wagner – and two living gods: Max von Schillings and Ludwig Thuille! What was a ‘classical’ man like me to make of that! Despite my genuine enthusiasm for Thuille’s opera ‘Lobetanz’ and his wind sextet, I soon sensed a rift opening up that would separate me from the ‘Munich School’. Nevertheless, I worked diligently under Thuille. To many later critics of my music, I seemed to belong to the Munich School. A great mistake! Certainly, after some time, my music bore traces of it – but far more through the supreme god Richard Wagner than through the lesser gods!”

In 1902, Weismann married the concert singer Anna Hecker and settled in Munich as a freelance composer – perhaps one reason why he wrote so many solo songs with piano accompaniment during his early creative phase. In 1906 he returned to his hometown of Freiburg and also worked as a pianist and conductor. The 1920s became the most productive period of Weismann’s life: five of his six operas were composed within ten years. The breakthrough had been achieved. In 1929 he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and received its Beethoven Prize a year later. In 1930, Weismann founded the Freiburg Music Seminar with Erich Doflein, which after the Second World War became the Freiburg University of Music. There he taught composition and led the masterclass in piano. In 1939 he was made an honorary citizen of Freiburg and received the Leipzig Bach Prize. However, in the same year he moved to Nussdorf (near Überlingen) on Lake Constance and gave up teaching two years later. Weismann, who was in any case a rather shy loner, though warm towards friends, gradually withdrew from public life. The final years of Weismann’s life were marked by illness borne without complaint, scepticism, but also by diligent composing and numerous house concerts among his closest circle of friends right up until his death in 1950. On 22 December 1950, shortly before his 71st birthday, Julius Weismann died in Singen am Hohentwiel.

Stylistic Position

Julius Weismann’s oeuvre is as extensive as it is multifaceted: it extends to Opus number 157a (though there are numerous works without an opus number), and it encompasses (apart from sacred music) virtually every musical genre – from operas, incidental music, choral works and songs, through to symphonies, concertos and piano pieces of all kinds, right up to chamber music, which occupies a central place in his oeuvre and from which his entire body of work can be understood. A catalogue of works is available from the Julius Weismann Archive in Duisburg.

There are two reasons for Weismann’s impressive, sustained productivity: until 1930 and from 1941 onwards, he was able to concentrate on his work largely unhindered by official duties, as he worked as a freelance composer, pianist, conductor and song accompanist. His sketchbooks, which he took with him on every walk, show that Weismann fluently jotted down the ideas that came to him in the great outdoors. He composed without a piano, relying on an evidently outstanding inner sense of sound and a fully formed internal conception.

This abundance and diversity also presents the problem of classifying the work stylistically. The pianist Franzpeter Goebels has attempted a classification based on Weismann’s piano works: up to Op. 68 (1917), he identifies a ‘Romantic’ or ‘naive’ phase, influenced by Schumann. From Op. 76 (1918/20) to Op. 87 (1923), “the influence of Debussy becomes noticeable” through the differentiation and concentration of the harmony and the means employed. From Op. 93 (1926) to Op. 109 (1931), according to Goebel, “constructive features tighten the form”; he sees “a kind of new music dawning” and the “polyphony becomes harsher”. He dates the beginning of Weismann’s late style—which is particularly characterised by contrapuntal thinking and a turn towards Bach—from Op. 114 (1933/34), but adds: “One is, however, reluctant to periodise such a multi-layered body of work in this sense. The transitions are fluid, and every single work demands to be heard and understood in its own right.” Attempts to classify Weismann’s work can be found throughout his career. As early as 1907, Thomas-San-Galli remarked (on the Symphony in B minor, Op. 19): “If we were to name historical parallels, we might find echoes of Schumann here and there. Now and then, Brahms also wanders past in indistinct outlines. Weismann’s true kinship, however, lies with Franz Schubert.” Alexander Berrsche, the classic figure of Munich music criticism, highlights in Weismann “the gift of a rich, carefree imagination” and “the ease with which he always commanded it”. Adolf Weißmann, one of the most significant Berlin music writers of his time, also mentions Julius Weismann in his book *Musik in der Weltkrise* (1922): “And now one could list a long series of those who, in various ways—some straying from the fractured line of modern art—are seeking solutions. ... Julius Weismann is energetically at work, seeking a style somewhere between the Brahmsian and the modern, but in any case one of coherence ... He is no revolutionary, but rather an outsider who, particularly in his chamber music works, professes a reserved nature.” (p. 232)

Richard Wagner’s grandson Wieland Wagner, who cared for Weismann intensively towards the end of his life, saw Weismann’s music as ‘... rooted in the realms of the metaphysical; he regards himself merely as the mediator of a gift he receives in a moment of inspiration. The most modern harmonies, wandering in the borderlands of tonality, blend organically with the relentless rigour and devout humility of the musical conception.”

After the Second World War, interest in the latest musical developments was so great that in Germany, composers who did not follow the paths of Hindemith, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Webern were dismissed as “conservative”. There was little room for individualists such as Julius Weismann. Furthermore, when the first catalogue of his works was published in 1955, his oeuvre was scattered across 20 different publishers, and a large proportion of the compositions existed only in manuscript form. Yet the time is long overdue for a rediscovery of Weismann’s music. In 1954, at the instigation of Wieland Wagner, the Julius Weismann Archive was founded in Duisburg. Weismann’s manuscripts, sketchbooks and other materials from the archive were transferred to the Duisburg City Library on permanent loan in 1981. And from its base in Duisburg, the archive’s office is committed to promoting Weismann’s work.

Gerd Rataj (Published with the kind permission of the MDG label www.mdg.de)