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Rheinberger, Josef (1839-1901): The Complete Music Autographs in the BSB

Born in Vaduz in 1839, Josef Gabriel Rheinberger came to the Munich Conservatory for training at the age of twelve, where his teachers were Franz Hauser, Johann Georg Herzog and Julius Joseph Maier (who became the first director of the music department of the Court and State Library in 1857). He also took private lessons with Franz Lachner. At the age of nineteen he himself taught piano, later organ and composition at the conservatory. Rheinberger had an international reputation as a teacher of composition and composer in Munich. Among his students were Engelbert Humperdinck, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Wilhelm Furtwängler and many others. As court conductor of King Ludwig II, Rheinberger also held an important position in Catholic church music in Germany. His sacred choral works and organ compositions were enormously popular. Rheinberger was married to the poet Franziska von Hoffnaaß, who wrote texts for some of his vocal works and also compiled several handwritten lists of Rheinberger's works. The transfer of Josef Rheinberger's bequest to the court library was agreed upon early on by Rheinberger and his former teacher Julius Joseph Maier, and was set down in his will. The bequest comprises many hundreds of autograph music manuscripts, which comprehensively reflect Rheinberger's compositional oeuvre, as well as numerous autograph copies of works by other composers.