Karl [Carl; Károly] Goldmark
born Keszthely, Hungary, May 18, 1830; died Vienna, January 2, 1915
Documents associated with this person:
Hungarian composer.
Career Summary
Goldmark studied violin at the Vienna Conservatory in the 1840s, and embarked upon a career in Vienna as a professional violinist working in theater orchestras. Largely self-taught, he began to compose c. 1860, and became an honorary member of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in 1866. His compositions include six operas, the best known of which was his first, Die Konigin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba) (1875), and also orchestral, choral, and chamber works, and solo songs. He wrote a book of memoirs that was published in 1922.
Goldmark and Schenker
Schenker reviewed his opera Das Heimchen am Herd (The Cricket on the Hearth ‒ Charles Dickens) in 1896. Schenker's diary for February 8, 1897 (Series A, p. 1) records a "visits to Goldmark and Brüll" from whom he received "thoroughly favorable judgement of my compositions." Schenker and Goldmark then went to the Café Landmann and talked further. On March 8, 1907, Schenker asked Cotta to send a complimentary copy of his Harmonielehre to Goldmark.
Goldmark is mentioned several times in Schenker's subsequent diaries, including an extended tribute at his death on January 2, 1915 that begins: "Karl Goldmark is dead! What was most touching in him was a striving that was never without a certain solemnity and ceremoniousness. Even more moving was his modesty, which expressed itself in a consciousness that he was unable to achieve the ideal of masterhood." and ends: "There have been many musicians who were compelled to advance themselves autodidactically, but rarely was it granted to anyone to complete their development so thoroughly and meticulously." (diary, January 3, 1915). After 1915, there are several further references to him, including an extensive discussion with Alfred Rothberger on October 3, 1926.
— No correspondence between the two men is known to survive.
Sources
- Federhofer, Hellmut, Heinrich Schenker nach Tagebüchern ... (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1985), p. 76.
- Federhofer, Hellmut, Heinrich Schenker als Essayist (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1990), pp. 185–88, 237–38, 337–41
- Goldmark, Karl, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben (Vienna: Rikola Verlag, 1922)
Contributor
- Ian Bent