JOHANN VON HERBECK - nca - new classical adventure

Herbeck then continued to train himself and never attended a conservatory.
Perhaps this was the reason why his pursuit of a career in music was not so
straightforward. After finishing grammar school he started to study philosophy at
the university in Vienna in October 1847 but left to become private tutor to a
factory owner’s family in Lower Austria in 1848/49. In 1850 he once again broke
off his course of studies – this time in law and once again without qualification.
nobility on 5 February 1874 in recognition of his services to the musical scene in
Vienna. Following his resignation from the post of court opera director, Herbeck
succeeded Johannes Brahms in 1875 as director of concerts given by the
‘Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’. Herbeck, who had suffered with lung complaints
several times during his life, died as the result of pneumonia on 28 October 1877,
at the age of just forty-five.
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In 1852 however, the twenty-year-old’s orientation period was over: Herbeck got
married on 5 July and started a family. In the same year he took over the post of
choirmaster at the Piarist’s church ‘Maria Treu’ in Vienna and this proved to be the
start of Herbeck’s meteoric rise to the leading positions in Vienna’s musical scene
– and as such, of all Austria. He joined the ‘Männergesang-Verein’ (Male-Voice
Choral Society) in Vienna in 1852 and was also the society’s choirmaster
between 1856 and 1866. Herbeck was professor of singing at the conservatory
of the ‘Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’ (Society of the Friends of Music) in
1858/59 and was appointed director at the same time of the society’s
‘Singverein’ formed in 1858 – Herbeck was artistic director of the ‘Musikfreunde’
between 1859 and 1869, appointed assistant court music director in 1863 and
just three years later was appointed principal court music director.
Johann von Herbeck kept exploiting his outstanding position in Vienna’s music
scene to champion the works of composers who had unjustly fallen into oblivion
or whose works had become neglected. After he had been given the score to
Schubert’s Symphony in B minor – in May 1865 by Schubert’s friend from
university Anselm Hüttenbrenner – he already conducted the premiere
performance of the Unfinished on 17 December of the same year. He also
integrated Schubert’s Masses into the court orchestra’s repertoire, published the
first complete edition of Schubert’s Choral Works in 1865 and played a
substantial role in the erection of a monument to the composer. Herbeck was
friends with Franz Liszt, spoke out in favour of Wagner and Verdi at the court
opera, supported Karl Goldmark – and in 1868, arranged for the Linz cathedral
organist Anton Bruckner to be appointed court organist in Vienna and professor of
harmony, counterpoint and organ playing at the conservatory of the ‘Gesellschaft
der Musikfreunde’. Herbeck recognised Bruckner’s revolutionary importance as a
symphonist before anyone else and spoke up for the Upper Austrian all of his life.
Herbeck moved on to the court opera as principal music director in July 1869 and
was the opera’s sole director between 1870 and 1875. Herbeck was raised to the