Woldemar Bargiel

Woldemar Bargiel (3 October 1828 – 23 February 1897) was a German composer and music educator. Born and active primarily in Berlin, he became a professor and was regarded as one of the most respected musical teachers of his time.

He was born into a musical family: his father, Adolf Bargiel (1783–1841), was a voice and piano teacher, and his mother, Marianne Tromlitz (1797–1872), was a pianist and singer and the granddaughter of the flutist Johann Georg Tromlitz. Marianne had previously been married to Friedrich Wieck, making Clara Schumann Bargiel’s half-sister; Bargiel’s friendship with Clara and her husband Robert Schumann played a role in his career.

Bargiel received his first instruction from his father and later studied with Siegfried Dehn. As a boy he sang in the Berlin Cathedral choir under Felix Mendelssohn. From 1846 to 1849 he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, where his teachers included Moritz Hauptmann, Ferdinand David, Ignaz Moscheles, Julius Rietz, and Niels Gade.

From 1850 Bargiel taught privately in Berlin, later working for a time at the Cologne Conservatory. In 1865 he became head of a music school in Rotterdam, where in 1870 he married one of his pupils, Jeanne Hermine Thoors (1845–1911), the daughter of the organist Bartholomeus Thoors. In 1874, at the invitation of Joseph Joachim, he returned to Berlin to teach composition at the Berlin University of the Arts (then the Berlin Hochschule für Musik), and from 1876 he held the title of professor.

As a teacher he influenced many students, among them Leo Blech, Leopold Godowsky, Charles Martin Loeffler, Peter Raabe, Ernst Friedrich Karl Rudorff, and Paul Juon. As a composer, Bargiel worked in the tradition of Schumann and Mendelssohn, and his music was also noted for the direct influence of Ludwig van Beethoven.

The most important part of his legacy is considered to be his chamber music, including string quartets, a piano trio, and an octet. His output also includes orchestral and choral works such as the overture to “Prometheus,” a concert overture “Medea,” a Symphony in C major (Op. 30), an Adagio for cello and orchestra (Op. 38), and several psalm settings for choir and orchestra.

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