Franzjosef Maier

Franzjosef Maier
Born	(1925-04-27)April 27, 1925 Memmingen, Germany
💀Died	October 16, 2014(2014-10-16) (aged 89) Bergisch Gladbach, GermanyOctober 16, 2014(2014-10-16) (aged 89)
💼 Occupation	Violinist, conductor
Known for	Concertmaster of Collegium Aureum

Franzjosef Maier (27 April 1925 – 16 October 2014) was a German violinist, conductor, and artistic leader of the Collegium Aureum.

Early life and education

Maier was born in Memmingen in 1925. He received early musical training on the piano, violin and viola. From 1938 he studied at the Augsburg Conservatory and later at the Munich Academy. Between 1940 and 1944 he attended a music-focused school in Frankfurt, where he studied with Wilhelm Isselmann and Kurt Thomas.

After the Second World War and a period of captivity, Maier studied from 1946 to 1948 at the Cologne University of Music, where his studies included composition with Philipp Jarnach.

Career

In 1948 Maier was a co-founder of the Collegium Musicum for early music of the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk. During the postwar period he worked closely with the violinist Kurt Schäffer and became a member of the Schäffer Quartet, serving as second violinist in the ensemble’s best-known formation of the late 1950s and 1960s.

With the Schäffer Quartet he participated in recordings of works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn, including the ensemble’s complete recording cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets produced in Paris.

From 1949 to 1959 Maier taught at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Düsseldorf. From 1959 to 1992 he held a professorship for violin at the Cologne University of Music.

Collegium Aureum and historical performance

In 1964 Maier became concertmaster and leader of the Collegium Aureum, an ensemble founded by the record label Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and associated with historically informed performance on period instruments. The ensemble performed without a conductor and was directed by the concertmaster.

Maier advocated performance practice based on historical instruments and stylistic approaches appropriate to the relevant musical period. His work with Collegium Aureum contributed to the development of the early music scene in Cologne and West Germany.

His recording of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's Rosary Sonatas was released in 1983, at a time when the work was still relatively little known to wider audiences.

Teaching and students

Maier was an influential teacher of violin and baroque violin. His students included Reinhard Goebel, founder of Musica Antiqua Köln, and Werner Ehrhardt, later artistic director of Concerto Köln.

Other students associated with his teaching included Manfredo Kraemer and Gustavo Zarba.

Recordings

Maier recorded as violinist, concertmaster and leader of Collegium Aureum. His discography includes recordings of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber.

Death

Maier died on 16 October 2014 in Bergisch Gladbach.

References

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