1839–1901 · Liechtenstein
Josef Rheinberger was born in Vaduz in 1839 and died in Munich in 1901. He was an organist, composer and teacher who lived in Munich for most of his life and taught at its conservatorium; among his pupils were Humperdinck and Furtwängler. He is best known for his organ music; the site has his Toccata for piano.
Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was born in Vaduz; the date was 17 March 1839. His father, Johann Peter Rheinberger, was treasurer at the princely court, and his mother was Elisabeth Carigiet. There were eleven children in the family, among them his brother Peter.
By the age of seven the boy was organist of the parish church in Vaduz, and a year later his first composition was performed. He then studied in neighbouring Feldkirch, where in 1849 his teacher was the composer Philipp Schmutzer.
In 1851 Josef went to Munich to study. His father had at first opposed a career in music but eventually relented and let his son enter the Munich Conservatorium.
In Munich he was taught by the organist Johann Georg Herzog, the pianist Julius Emil Leonhard and the musicologist Julius Joseph Maier, who worked on the legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach. In addition, he had private lessons with Franz Lachner.
Rheinberger lived in Munich for nearly all his life. From 1859 he taught piano, organ and composition at the conservatorium. When the first Munich Conservatorium was dissolved, he became a répétiteur at the Court Theatre and left that post in 1867.
When the second, present-day conservatorium opened, he received a royal professorship in organ and composition, which he held until he died. Ludwig Thuille, Engelbert Humperdinck, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Julius Weismann and Richard Strauss were all his pupils, as were the Americans George Chadwick and Horatio Parker, the Italian Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and the Serbian Stevan Mokranjac.
In 1867 Rheinberger married Franziska von Hoffnaaß, a poet who had earlier studied with him. They had no children. She wrote the texts for many of his vocal works, for example the cantata The Star of Bethlehem, and is thought to have strongly influenced her husband's aesthetic outlook.
From 1877 he served as court conductor, in charge of the royal chapel's music. Later the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München awarded him an honorary doctorate.
On 31 December 1892 the composer's wife died after a long illness. Two years later, in poor health, Rheinberger gave up the post of court conductor.
Rheinberger died in Munich on 25 November 1901 and his grave was in the Alter Südfriedhof. The grave did not survive the Second World War, and in 1950 the composer and his wife were reburied in Vaduz, his birthplace.
Rheinberger is best remembered today for his organ music. He composed two organ concertos with orchestra, 20 sonatas in twenty different keys out of a planned 24, 22 trios and 36 solo organ pieces. Several of these pieces are used for teaching, and a few are heard in concert halls too. Between 1999 and 2009 Naxos released eight discs of his organ music, played by Wolfgang Rübsam.
He wrote for voices as well. His works include masses, a requiem, a Stabat Mater, the cantata Der Stern von Bethlehem, Op. 164, the motet Abendlied, Op. 69 No. 3, and choral pieces both accompanied and unaccompanied. There are two operas, Die sieben Raben and Türmers Töchterlein, a children's operetta, Das Zauberwort, the oratorio Christophorus and music for a comedy by Calderón. Altogether he wrote over 150 works.
His orchestral works include the symphonic picture Wallenstein, Op. 10, and the Florentine Symphony, Op. 87. He also wrote chamber music: string quartets and quintets, piano trios and sonatas for solo instruments with piano, among them the Clarinet Sonata, Op. 105. Bach is named as the chief influence on his style, along with Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Schubert.
For pianists, the site has the Toccata, Op. 104, at the intermediate-plus level. It is a place to begin getting to know the composer.