Goldmark, Carl - Meeresstille & Glückliche Fahrt op.16

Carl Goldmark was born on 18 May 1830 in Keszthely on Lake Balaton in Hungary. The son of Hungarian-Jewish parents, he grew up in modest, narrow circumstances among 21 (by some accounts 24) siblings. Although he received some instrumental and composition lessons, he was essentially self-taught. For several years he played the violin in theatre orchestras in Ödenburg (Sopron) and Vienna.

In 1863 he was awarded a music scholarship by the three members of the Ministry of Education’s commission, Eduard Hanslick, Esser and Herbeck. At the age of 27 he first decided to present his own compositions to the public, and at 28 he gave his first concert of his own works. At the beginning of the 1860s Goldmark played viola in a young string quartet. It was during this time that his friendship with Johannes Brahms began.

Towards the end of the 19th century Goldmark was a very popular composer, showered with superlatives. Jean Sibelius, who studied with him for a time from 1890, wrote in 1892 that Goldmark enjoyed an extraordinary reputation in Vienna and that many people envied him for being Goldmark’s pupil. Julius Korngold, Eduard Hanslick’s successor as critic, spoke of a “Goldmark cult”.

Numerous honours attest to the high esteem in which Goldmark was held in his day. As early as 1866 he was made an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. In 1896 he received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Leopold for his services to the art of music and to musical literature. In 1910 the University of Budapest awarded the 80-year-old an honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. h. c.). Together with Richard Strauss and others, he was appointed an honorary member of the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome on 7 February 1914. Carl Goldmark died in Vienna on 2 January 1915.