- Joseph Hoch
Joseph Paul Johannes Hoch (
Frankfurt am Main , May 31815 - Frankfurt am Main, September 19,1874 ) was a Germanlawyer andbenefactor . He willed his fortune to theHoch Conservatory Foundation and, in 1878, Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium was founded in Frankfurt, and is, afterLeipzig andBerlin , one of the oldest conservatories inGermany .Life
Joseph Hoch came from a family which had been in Frankfurt am Main for generations. All four of his grandparents had lived there. His father, the lawyer Johann Peter Hieronymus Hoch (1779–1831), was a
magistrate andsenator who, in 1829, became mayor of theFree City of Frankfurt . His mother, Ottilie von Sodenstern, who was born inSwitzerland , was also the child of a magistrate and senator.Like his father had done, Hoch studied
law and received the degree ofDoctor of Law . He began to learn piano and violin at a young age. At the age of 41 he married theBaroness Ottilie von Sodenstern, who outlived him by 48 years. He inherited a large fortune from both sides of his family. He had no offspring (the reason he bequeathed his fortune to the Conservatory) and his wife died in 1922 inKassel .He decided early on, with banker Johann Friedrich
Städel as his model, to bequeath to his city enough money to found an institute for education in the arts. Before he made a trip to in England in 1843, he made a first version of a will with this intention; this was completed on July 14, 1857. In his testament of 21 paragraphs, he left the Conservatory Foundation around one millionmark s.His grave can be found at the main city graveyard in Frankfurt.
Literature
* Commemoration Speech by Professor Dr. Max Flesch-Thebesius, given on May 19, 1965 at the celebration of the 150th birthday of Joseph Hoch, printed in: "Stiftung Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium Joseph Hoch zum 100. Todestag", Frankfurt am Main: Kramer, 1974, with kind permission of Dr. Henriette Kramer, Verlag Waldemar Kramer GmbH, Frankfurt and Dr. Peter Cahn, Frankfurt.
* Peter Cahn: "Das Hoch'sche Konservatorium in Frankfurt am Main (1878-1978)", Frankfurt am Main: Kramer, 1979.
* "Festschrift 125 Jahre Stiftung Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium Frankfurt am Main", Frankfurt am Main, 2003.External links
* [http://www.dr-hochs.de/ Offizielle Homepage of the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main]
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