Josef Pembaur: Spring Overture

Josef Pembaur (1848-1923)

Frühlingsouverture
(Spring Overture)

Orchester der Akademie St. Blasius
Karlheinz Siessl, conductor

Josef Pembaur the Elder (1848 - 1923) was an Austrian conductor, composer and music teacher. The son of an administrative officer and local council member, Pembaur studied law at the University of Innsbruck, but then turned to music and studied composition and organ at the Viennese Conservatory with Anton Bruckner, music theory and organ at the Munich Conservatory with Josef Gabriel Rheinberger, and also with Giuseppe Buonamici, Franz Wüllner and Julius Hey. In Munich he befriended Peter Cornelius. In 1874 he became the successor of Matthäus Nagiller as director of the Musikverein in Innsbruck and secured an enhancement of musical life there. Pembaur conducted an orchestral association founded by him and the academic services in the Jesuit Church, the Academic Vocal Society, the Innsbruck Liedertafel and the Tiroler Sängerbund, which he resurrected in 1881. For annual performances of oratorios, he founded a mixed choir. At the school, he taught solo singing, piano, musical theory, and also, occasionally, organ. Among his pupils were Ludwig Thuille, Vinzenz Goller, Anton Schmutzer, Hartmann of An der Lan-Hochbrunn, Martin Spörr and Josef Eduard Ploner. He paid a higher salary for teachers, gaining better instructors and raising the prestige of the school. In 1912 he determined that the Musikverein, which had previously used various inadequate rooms, needed appropriate facilities, and ensured that it had its own building, today's Tyrolean Landeskonservatorium. His sons Joseph and Karl were also musicians. As a composer, Pembaur produced a symphony, a cello concerto, an opera, oratorios, a German and eight Latin fairs, a requiem, a march, piano music, chamber music, 56 male choirs, seven mixed choirs and some 70 songs. His male choruses were performed not only in Europe, but also in America. While he showed interest in modern music as a conductor, he remained as a composer a post-romanticist influenced by Robert Schumann. He also published several articles and essays, especially in the annual reports of the Innsbruck School of Music.