Julius Hey

1832 — 1909
Born: Höchheim • Died: Munich
DE
romantic

Julius Hey was a German music pedagogue and theorist born on April 29, 1832, in Höchheim, Lower Franconia. He came from a modest background as the son of a natural stone grinder and polisher. His early education was shaped through the support of Baron Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, a professor of geology at the University of Göttingen, who helped Hey begin studies in engraving in 1844 under architect and draftsman Francesco Saverio Cavallari. On May 7, 1854, Hey was admitted to the Munich Academy of Arts under the direction of Wilhelm von Kaulbach. After receiving his certificate of maturity and qualifying as a copper engraver in 1856, he privately studied painting under Karl Millner.

Influenced by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Joseph Joachim, Hey decided to abandon painting and dedicate himself to music. In 1859, he became a private student of composition and conducting under Franz Lachner in Munich while also taking singing lessons with Friedrich Schmitt. Between 1860 and 1865, he taught theory, piano, and singing privately, eventually working within Bavarian aristocratic circles. From early 1864 he served as music teacher to the Dukes of Bavaria and instructed the young Ludwig II.

In 1864, he briefly held the position of second conductor in Augsburg. That same year he met Richard Wagner, who later appointed him professor of singing at the Munich State Music School, a post he held from 1867 to 1887. Hey’s pedagogical system was based on a meticulous study of the phonetic characteristics of the German language and their relationship to melodic expression. His major work, "Deutscher Gesangsunterricht" (1886), presented his comprehensive approach to training German singers, aligning with Wagner’s principles. The work proceeds systematically from natural tone production to fully developed artistic singing, grounded in practical teaching experience.

Hey’s many students formed a strong group of performers of Wagnerian roles on German stages. He also authored the study "R. Wagner als Vortragsmeister" (published posthumously in 1911) and composed a small number of romances and duets that remain in use in German vocal pedagogy today. Julius Hey died on April 22, 1909, in Munich.

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