Hanuš Wihan

Hanus Wihan ( born June 5, 1855 in Politz, Bohemia; † May 1, 1920 in Prague) was a Czech cellist and music teacher.

Life

Wihan began his musical education thirteen years old at the Prague Conservatory with František Hegenbarth and put them at Carl Davidoff at the Petersburg Conservatory. Eighteen- year-old he became a teacher at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. 1874-75, he joined the orchestra of the Russian philanthropist Pavel Derviz on in Nice and Lugano.

With the pianist Josef Jiranek, a student Smetana he undertook in 1875 a concert tour through Bohemia. In 1876 he became principal cellist of the Berlin orchestra by Benjamin Bilse and thus known in Germany, in the following year a member of the chapel in Sondershausen, where he met Franz Liszt.

In October 1880 the Munich Court Orchestra Wihan joined as a soloist and there existing since 1875 string quartet by Benno Walter in each case as the successor of Henry Schubel. Here he met Richard Strauss know who dedicated his Sonata op.6 and two pieces for cello and piano, and he made their first performance in 1882 and 1883. As a member of the Walter Quartet in 1881, he was also at the premiere of the string quartet by Richard Strauss. In the concerts of the Musical Academy in 1880, he played the cello concerto by Molique and 1882, the Piatti. The most fertile for his further career, the Munich years were also on some concert tours, which he purchased himself rich chamber music experience through the regular annual appearances with the Walter Quartet until the spring of 1888. In 1888 he was Hegenbarth successor at the Prague Conservatory as Ptrofessor for cello and director of the chamber music ensembles. In 1892 he undertook with the violinist Ferdinand Lachner Dvorak and a concert tour of Czech cities. In 1894 he appeared with great success at a concert of the Russian Musical Society in Moscow with Robert Volkmann's Cello Concerto and Max Bruch's Kol Nidre. At the same concert tour he played with Jan Hrimaly, David Krein and Nikolay Sokolovsky Beethoven's String Quartet Op 131 and with Pavel Schletzer Chopin's Cello Sonata.

1895 played Wihan the private premiere of Dvorak's Cello Concerto, which he had dedicated to him. After the first public performance with Leo Star in London Wihan played it in 1899 in The Hague, Amsterdam and Budapest, conducted by the composer. For students of the Prague Conservatory, the violinists Karel Hoffmann and Josef Suk and violist Oskar Nedbal who were students of Antonín Bennewitz and his own students Otakar Berger formed Wihan string quartet, in 1892 the name Bohemian Quartet received and was called after 1918 Czech Quartet. After Berger's serious illness in 1895, he played in the quartet even the cello. He undertook with the quartet concert tours through Europe and Russia, where the composer Sergei Taneyev and the writer Leo Tolstoy were among his admirers. He was succeeded by his pupil Ladislav Zelenka, who led the quartet through to resolution 1934.

Source

• Cellist Database - Hanus Wihan

• Classical cellist
• Music teacher
• University teachers ( Prague Conservatory )
• Person (Kingdom of Bohemia)
• Person ( Cisleithania )
• Czechoslovak
• Born in 1855
• Died in 1920
• Man