Page 363 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2023. Glasbena društva v dolgem 19. stoletju: med ljubiteljsko in profesionalno kulturo ▪︎ Music societies in the long 19th century: Between amateur and professional culture. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 6
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the role and contribution of immigrant musicians to the music societies ...

Schachenhofer (1871–1941), previously active in Ptuj and Maribor, conduct-
ed the orchestra of the Celje Music Association from 1902 to 1904, occa-
sionally taught violin at the association’s school and performed as a solo-
ist and in chamber ensembles. His conducting was very clear, prudent and
calm, and he knew how to inspire the performers. In Celje he tragically
went blind, however, and never recovered. Before his health deteriorated,
he managed to write the march Cillier Bürger which was later occasional-
ly played on Viennese radio. After the tragedy, his brother Moritz took over
the orchestra, which he successfully conducted, performing pieces such as
Beethoven’s Symphony in C Minor and the prelude to Die Meistersinger
von Nürnberg by Wagner.121 In 1908 he founded the Chamber Music Asso-
ciation (Kammermusikvereiningung). His violin teaching system was ex-
tremely successful and “worked wonders” as his best students, Edmund
Unger Ulmann and Elisabeth Matič, gave “unforgettable concerts.”122 His
pupils were among the first performers of Oskar Rieding’s compositions in
Celje. Schachenhofer died unexpectedly at the age of just 31.

After Schachenhofer’s death, the violinist and composer Karl Paul
Seifert (1881–after 1966) from Bohemia,123 former violin teacher of the Ptuj
Music Association (Pettauer Musikverein), took over his duties in 1910. He
remained in Celje for only a year and then moved to Leoben, where he be-
came director of the music school.

With the hiring of Josef Karl Richter (1880–1933),124 the former teacher
and Kapellmeister of Žatec in Bohemia, the functions of Kapellmeister and
director of the music school and concerts were once again divided between
two people. Thus Gustav Fischer conducted the orchestra, while Richter

121 Anon., “Orchesterkonzert des Cillier Musikvereines,” Deutsche Wacht, February 20,
1909, 4.

122 Anon., “Moritz Schachenhofer,” 3–4.
123 Karl Paul Seifert was born in Teplice, Bohemia. He attended high school in Graz and

received his music lessons at the Styrian Music Association with Erich Wolf Degner
and Karl Krehnan. From 1903 to 1905 he was a violin teacher at the Music Associa-
tion in Ptuj and from 1910 to 1911 a music director at the Music Association in Cel-
je. From 1911 to 1914 he worked as music director in Leoben, and in 1915 he taught
piano and violin at the Philharmonic Society in Ljubljana. In 1922 he continued his
violin studies with Joseph Joachim and his theory studies with Engelbert Hump-
erdinck in Berlin. From 1949 to 1955 Seifert taught at the College of Music (Hoch­
schule für Musik) in Weimar. His Symphony no. 2 was premiered in Gotha in 1965.
See: Wolfgang Suppan, “Seifert, Karl Paul,” in Steirisches Musiklexikon (Graz: Akad-
emische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 2009), 641–2.
124 He was born in Podbořany, Bohemia, on 16 March 1880. At the Celje Music Associa-
tion he was active between 1911 and 1914. He died in Vienna on 22 September 1933.

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