- Carl Venth
Carl Venth (
February 16 ,1860 –January 29 ,1938 ) was a German-Americancomposer , violinist, conductor, music educator, and scholar. He was a leadingclassical music figure inTexas in the first half of the twentieth century and was one of the early music directors of theDallas Symphony Orchestra .Early life and education
Carl Venth was born in
Cologne ,Germany , the son of Carl Venth and Friderika von Turkowitz. He began violin study with his father at age 9. He was educated at the Friedrich Wilhelm-Gymnasium; at the Cologne Conservatory, where he studied violin with George Japha and composition withFerdinand Hiller , Gustav Jensen, and Otto Klauwell; and at the Brussels Conservatory, where he studied violin withHenryk Wieniawski and from which he was graduated in 1877.Career
In 1878 Venth was appointed
concertmaster of the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra and of the Flemish Opera inBrussels ; in 1879 he assumed the same post with the Offenbach Comic Opera ofParis . He made his solo debut in 1878 with the Utrecht Symphony, followed by a concert tour ofHolland in 1879 and of the United States in 1880.In 1880 Venth moved to the U.S., whereupon he concertized as a violin soloist for four years before accepting a position in the orchestra of the
Metropolitan Opera inNew York City . He lived in New York until 1908, during which time he founded the Venth College of Music inBrooklyn (1889), founded and conducted the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra (1890), founded and led the Venth String Quartet (1891), and served as conductor or concertmaster with the Euterpe Orchestral Society of New York and the St. Paul Symphony.In 1899 Venth married Cathinka Finch Myhr of
Norway .In 1908 Venth came to Texas to direct the violin department at Kidd-Key College in Sherman. In 1911 he helped bring a moribund
Dallas Symphony Orchestra back into existence and assumed the post of music director, a position he would hold until 1914; in 1913 he took a concurrent similar position with theFort Worth Symphony Orchestra . In 1914 Venth was appointed Dean of Fine Arts at Texas Woman's College inFort Worth (now namedTexas Woman's University and located in Denton). Venth remained in Fort Worth until 1931 but served as concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony from 1927 to 1931. In 1931, he moved to San Antonio to become Dean of Fine Arts at Westmoreland College (which was renamed the University of San Antonio during Venth's tenure and is now known as Trinity University), where he taught violin, harmony, and theory.Throughout his professional life Venth was active as a composer. He composed at least three operas ("Pan", "The Monk of Iona", "Fair Betty" [listed as "Fairy Betty" in one source] ), four cantatas, two violin concertos, two string quartets, a piano trio, three violin sonatas, numerous songs, orchestral works, piano solo works, and pieces for violin and piano. Many of his compositions were premiered in New York and other important venues and were issued by major publishing houses, including
Breitkopf & Härtel and Carl Fischer. "Pan" is described in Venth's "Dallas Morning News" obituary as "the first American opera to gain international recognition."Carl Venth died in San Antonio, Texas, at the age of 77. His autobiography, "My Memories", was published posthumously, in 1939, by Alamo Printing Company of San Antonio.
ources
*Abraham, April. "Solo Piano Music by San Antonio Composers" (doctoral treatise). Austin TX: 1984.
*"Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians", Eighth Edition, ed. Nicolas Slonimsky. New York: Schirmer Books, 1992.
*"Dr. Carl Venth, 77, Composer, Dies At San Antonio." "The Dallas Morning News ", 30 January 1938.
*"International Who's Who in Music and Musical Gazetteer", ed. César Saerchinger. New York: Current Literature Publishing Company, 1918.
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