The Life and Legacy of Franz Xaver Hauser

Born near Prague, Franz Xaver Hauser (1794-1870) combined his singing and teaching careers with a consuming interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. A colleague of Felix Mendelssohn, Moritz Hauptmann, Robert Schumann, Jenny Lind, and Otto Jahn; the author of a text on vocal pedagogy in print for more than a century; the founder of the Munich Tonal Academy, which is still in existence; and the primary private contributor to the complete edition of Bach's works compiled by the Bach Society, Franz Hauser seems an unlikely candidate for obscurity. Yet throughout the twentieth century, his name and work have met with little recognition. . In this remarkable biography, Dale A. Jorgenson discloses the great legacy left by Hauser for future generations. Hauser's finest contribution was his achievement in cataloging all of Bach's known works and his collecting and disseminating for live performance all the original manuscripts and authentic copies of Bach's work he could obtain - materials he than made available to the Bach Society, founded in Leipzig in 1850. These activities provided a meaningful dimension to Hauser's life apart from his stage career, affording him a wide circle of significant friends who loved Bach's music or who were themselves leaders in the arts - Ludwig Tieck, Schumann, the Grimm Brothers, and many others.