Peter von Winter (baptized August 28, 1754 in Mannheim ; † October 17, 1825 in Munich ) was a German composer , singing teacher and conductor . Peter von Winter was the son of a brigadier at the electoral court in Mannheim . At the age of ten he was already playing in the Mannheim court orchestra as a violinist and is attested as a contrabassist in 1773, and from 1776 he was firmly committed as a violinist with the title “Hofmusicus”. At the same time he became leader of Theobald Marchand's private singing troupe, which performed German Singspiele.
In Mannheim, Winter was like Franz Danzi (and later also Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer ) a student of Abbé Vogler . When the Mannheim court orchestra followed Elector Karl Theodor to his new residence in Munich in 1778 , Winter also moved there (like Danzi, Cannabich, etc.). In the same year he married the tailor's daughter Marianne Grosser. From Munich he went on numerous concert tours. With an electoral scholarship, he was allowed to go to Vienna with his orchestra colleague Franz Tausch in 1780/81 to take lessons with Antonio Salierigain weight. In 1787 he became vice-director of vocal music in Munich, and in 1798 court conductor. In 1811 he founded the Musical Academy, which still lives on today in the academy concerts of the Bavarian State Orchestra . Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart emphasizes in his "Ideas for the Aesthetics of Tonal Art" Winter's symphonies and their treatment of minor episodes.
His main work is the Singspiel The Interrupted Sacrifice Festival , premiered in Vienna in 1796 , which was extremely successful throughout Europe until the middle of the 19th century; it was last shown in 1917, on the occasion of an opera festival week in Leipzig . The popularity of the work can also be seen in the composition of seven variations on Kind, Do you want to sleep peacefully by Beethoven (WoO 75). Like Goethe , Winter tried his hand at a sequel to Mozart's Magic Flute with the "great heroic-comic opera" The Labyrinth or the Fight with the Elements (1798) based on a text by Schikaneder . One of the settings of Goethe's Singspiel Scherz, List und Rache is also by Winter.
In the course of extensive travels, Winter presented his theatrical work across Europe. In addition to his numerous works for the stage, he also created compositions in the areas of chamber and orchestral music, including some symphonies, always in three movements, and solo concerts. In 1808 he became a member of the Paris Conservatory and in 1815 of the Royal Academy of Music of Sweden . For his fiftieth anniversary as court musician, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown by King Max Joseph of Bavaria on March 23, 1814 , and thereby became a personal nobilityraised. The now Peter von Winter earned merit as a music teacher by publishing his “Complete Singing School” in 1825. After his death, the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in Leipzig devoted a long, fourteen-page article to him, which was his assessment at the time as one of the most important German composers of his time. Text source : Wikipedia (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)
