Jahns, Friedrich Wilhelm
Jahns, Friedrich Wilhelm
Jaumlhns, Friedrich Wilhelm, German vocal pedagogue, writer on music, and composer; b. Berlin, Jan. 2, 1809; d. there, Aug. 8, 1888. He studied singing with Grell and Detroit, and was a boy soprano in the chorus of the Berlin Royal Opera. He then studied voice with Stümer and Lemm, and later composition with Gorzizky. He was founder-conductor of the Jähnssche Gesangverein (1845–70). He was made royal music director (1849). From 1881 he taught declamation at the Scharwenka Cons. He was very successful as a vocal teacher, numbering some 1, 000 pupils. His admiration for Weber impelled him to collect all the available materials pertaining to Weber’s life and works. His collection, containing 300 autograph letters, documents, pamphlets, essays, and first editions, was acquired in 1883 by the Berlin Royal Library. He publ, a treatise on Weber, with a thematic catalog, Carl Maria von Weber in seinen Werken (Berlin, 1871). Apart from exhaustive biographical data, this book is historically interesting because in the preface he introduced, for the first time in print, the Wagnerian term “Leitmotiv” this was later popularized by Wolzogen and others. He composed a Piano Trio, a Grand Sonata for Violin and Piano, a book of Schottische Lieder, and many other vocal pieces.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire