Hermann Goetz was born in Königsberg on 7 December 1870. He did not receive regular piano instruction until the age of seventeen. Goetz made such a swift progress that he was admitted to the Stern Consevatory in 1860, this after less than three years of instruction. His piano teacher was the later famous Louis Köhler. It was while a mathematics and physics student at the University of Königsberg, where he enrolled in 1858, that he obtained his first experience as a conductor and composer.

Goetz attempted to enliven the public music scene by founding a mixed choir and a dilettante orchestra but did not meet with sucsess. Both groups disbanded after only a short time. Concert career in solo and chamber recitals were the fields of activity remaining open to him. Although he never advanced to the status of great stylistic virtuoso, his achievements nevertheless were always held in high regard. Moreover, he at no time had to suffer from a lack of piano pupils, and his income from piano instruction was a significant supplement to his meager salary as an organist (he succeeded Kirchner in 1863, the organist at the town’s Lutheran church in Winterthur). Soon Goetz was able to extend his concert activity to Basel and Zürich, and here his ties became so strong that he took up residence there in 1870. For two years he continued to maintain his position and pupils in Winterthur, but in 1875, a tuberculosis diagnosed already during his youth gardually entered in his critical stage. He died on 3 December 1876 shortly befor completing his second opera “Francesca da Rimini”.

Hermann Goetz has almost been forgotten today. His activity and productivity were already limited during his lifetime, and his early death kept him from developing and expanding his mature compositional oeuvre. “Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung”, a work premiered in 1874, enjoyed initial broad a rapid dissemination but soon disappeared from the performance repertoire. The rest of Goetz’s oeuvre also fell into oblivion: one symphony, two concertos, compositions for choir and orchestra, songs, piano music, and chamber works.

(Contribution by Edgar Gencsi <gencsi@mail.telepac.pt>.)