Ferdinand August Kauer (18 January 1751 – 13 April 1831) was an

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ** Austria-Hungary ** Austria ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

and

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

Biography

Kauer was born in Klein-Thaya (today Dyjákovičky) near

Znojmo Znojmo (; ) is a town in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 34,000 inhabitants. Znojmo is the historical and cultural centre of southwestern Moravia and the second most populated town in the South Moravian Region. The hi ...

South Moravia The South Moravian Region (; , ; ), or just South Moravia, is an Regions of the Czech Republic, administrative unit () of the Czech Republic, located in the south-western part of its historical region of Moravia. The region's capital is Brno, th ...

). He studied in Znojmo, Tyrnau, and

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, and later settled in Vienna around 1777. In 1781 he joined Karl von Marinelli's newly formed company at Vienna as leader and conductor of the orchestra. From 1782 he also composed music for the theatre, including

Singspiel A Singspiel (; plural: ; ) is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera. It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias which were often strophic, or folk- ...

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

s, and incidental music and songs, mostly to texts by the house poet

Karl Friedrich Hensler Karl Friedrich Hensler (1 February 1759 – 24 November 1825)Karl Friedrich Hensler
data.bnf.fr. ...

. Their first major success was ''Das Faustrecht in Thüringen'' (''The Law of the Jungle in Thüringen'', 1796–1797), which was eclipsed two years later by the success of ''Das Donauweibchen'' (1798). He was

Kapellmeister ( , , ), from German (chapel) and (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in i ...

of the

Theater in der Leopoldstadt The Theater in der Leopoldstadt (also: Leopoldstädter Theater) was an opera house in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna, founded in 1781 by Karl von Marinelli, following the ''Schauspielfreiheit'' (ending of the court's monopoly on entertainment) ...

and

Theater in der Josefstadt The Theater in der Josefstadt is a theater in Vienna in the eighth district of Josefstadt. It was founded in 1788 and is the oldest still performing theater in Vienna. It is often referred to colloquially as simply ''Die Josefstadt''. Following ...

in Vienna and also in

Graz Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...

. He directed the

Leopoldstadt Leopoldstadt (; ; "Leopold-Town") is the 2nd municipal district of Vienna () in Austria. there are 103,233 inhabitants over . It is situated in the heart of the city and, together with Brigittenau (20th district), forms a large island surrou ...

Theater Music School and by the 1790s had become known for his popular

e. In addition to his successful stage works he composed several tutorial methods for

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

and

singing Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...

(c. 1790). A tragic flood in 1830 destroyed all Kauer's possessions, including most of his scores. He continued to work as the second

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

player at the Theater in der Leopoldstadt orchestra until his death in Vienna a year later.

Legacy

He wrote about 200 operas and Singspiele. The romantic opera ''Das Donauweibchen'' (1798) was one of the most popular operas of the early 19th century. It was staged in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

in 1803–1807 as ''Lesta, dneprovskaya rusalka'' () and its three sequels with Russian text and additional music by the naturalised Russian immigrant

Catterino Cavos Catterino Albertovich Cavos (; ; October 21, 1777 – ) was an Italian composer, organist and conductor who settled in Russia. He played an important role in the history of Russian opera and was the father of Alberto Cavos.Ardoin, John. (2001). ...

who originally hailed from

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, and

Stepan Davydov Stepan Ivanovich Davydov (, ; January 12 S January 11777 – May 21 S May 91825 in Moscow) was an Imperial Russian composer and singer. He was born in Chernihiv in the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine). Biography When the principal choirboy ...

(1777–1825). ''Das Donauweibchen'' was the first opera staged in

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

on 3 December 1826 in Viipuri by Schultz’s company. It was not unusual for travelling companies to make an excursion from the nearby

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

to Viipuri, Finland being an autonomous

Grand Duchy A grand duchy is a country or territory whose official head of state or ruler is a monarch bearing the title of grand duke or grand duchess. Prior to the early 1800s, the only Grand duchy in Europe was located in what is now Italy: Tuscany ( ...

in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

at the time. Kauer also wrote 200 masses, many pieces of

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...

(including ''Das Faustrecht in Thüringen''). His "12 Neue Ungarische Tänze" reflect the influence of roaming

Gypsy {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...

orchestras upon many composers of this era. In his "Sei variazioni" (c. 1810) Kauer introduced the

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...

into western classical music, and from that time this instrument has been adopted as a regular element of the orchestra. His music is rarely performed in modern times, but has been shown to be highly imaginative, tuneful, and worthy of further study.

Selected works

Ferdinand Kauer’s keyboard "Sonata militaire" was mistakenly attributed to

Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...

as Sonata D major, Hob. XVI: D1.

Bibliography

*Kauer, Ferdinand. ''Kurzgefasste Generalbass-Schule für Anfänger''. Wien, J. Cappi. c. 1800 *Kauer, Ferdinand. ''Kurzgefasste Harmonieschule für Damen mit Tonsystem, worin das H ausgeschlossen wird''. c. 1800 *Manschinger K.: ''Ferdinand Kauer'', doctoral thesis, Vienna 1929 *Bauer, A.: ''Das Theater in der Josefstadt'', 1957 *Longyear, R. M.: ''Ferdinand Kauer's Percussion Enterprises'', Galpin Society Journal, vol. 27 (1974), 2–8.

External links

Italian Opera Articles: KauerLorelea (Russian)List of stage works
at the ''Opern Project'' of the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kauer, Ferdinand 1751 births 1831 deaths Austrian classical composers Austrian opera composers Austrian people of Moravian-German descent Austrian male opera composers Moravian-German people Musicians from the Margraviate of Moravia People from Znojmo District 18th-century Austrian composers Composers from the Austrian Empire