Heinrich Klingenfeld

Klingenfeld, Heinrich

Klingenfeld, Heinrich. Violinist, conductor, educator, b Nuremberg 19 May 1856, d 19?. He studied with Ludwig Abel and Benno Walter in Munich and 1882-4 with Adolf Brodsky at the Leipzig Cons. He played in the Gewandhaus and Bayreuth Festival orchestras and made solo tours in Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. He moved to Canada in 1885 and taught at the Halifax Cons (Maritime Conservatory of Music). He enlarged the Haydn Quintette Club to present a number of orchestral concerts. With the pianist Charles Porter and the cellist Ernst Doering he formed the Leipzig Trio ca 1890. Klingenfeld joined the staff of the Toronto College of Music in 1893, performed as a soloist with the Toronto Orchestra, and began teaching at the Metropolitan Conservatory in 1894. Ysaÿe endorsed his treatise on violin training published in 1894 in Europe as Méthode élémentaire and in 1900 by Breitkopf, New York, as The Elements of Violin Playing. Klingenfeld also wrote Violaschule für Violinisten, published by Breitkopf in Germany and England.

Klingenfeld gave recitals alone and with his wife, the US-born singer Marie Klingenfeld, and was a member of the College Trio (with J. Lewis Browne, piano, and Paul Hahn, cello) and the Beethoven Trio (with H.M. Field, piano, and Rudolph Ruth, cello). He organized Klingenfeld's Orchestra, which gave its first concert 2 Apr 1895 and remained active for at least two years. He also taught 1895-9 in Toronto, at the Metropolitan School of Music, St Joseph's Convent, Loretto Abbey, and Havergal College. In 1900 he established the Klingenfeld College (later Conservatory of Music) in Brooklyn, NY. His wife, who also taught, became principal of this conservatory in 1903. However Klingenfeld appears to have divided his time between Toronto and Brooklyn. He returned to Toronto to teach, first at the Metropolitan School of Music in 1901, then at the TCM 1902-5. He also organized the Klingenfeld String Quartette (1901-5) with William Beardmore, second violin, J.S. Loudon, viola, and Paul Hahn, cello; in 1903 replaced by James O. Close, violin, Frank Converse Smith, viola, and Henry S. Saunders, cello; in 1904 Close was replaced by Frank Williams. The quartet gave two concerts a season, including in its repertoire piano quartets and quintets performed with Frank Welsman. It disbanded in 1905 when Klingenfeld moved permanently to Brooklyn.