Hugo Walter Voigtlander

Hugo Walter Voigtlander (November 8, 1859 – January 7, 1933) was a German-American musician who played violin, viola, and viola d'amore. He was also an instrument maker, and a collector and arranger of viola d'amore music. As a youth he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig and played violin and viola in several professional orchestras in Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1885 where he spent ten years playing viola and viola d'amore with various professional chamber groups in and around Detroit, Michigan. He then spent two years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania playing in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and in 1897 moved to New York City, where he played in a number of professional orchestras. In addition to playing viola d'amore, Walter Voigtlander taught viola d'amore, and made and collected numerous arrangements for the instrument.

Early life in Germany Voigtlander, who usually went by the name Walter, was born on 8 November 1859 in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony to Hermann Ludwig and Auguste Voigtländer. On 4 October 1879, he entered the Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig, where he studied violin with Henry Schradieck and viola with Friedrich Hermann. Walter Voigtlander spent the rest of his life in New York City as a professional orchestra musician. He played for twelve years in the New York Philharmonic, two years in the Hammerstein Opera Orchestra, and seven years in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini.

Voigtlander wrote two pedagogical works for the viola d'amore, presumably for his students, whom he mentions indirectly in the preface to the first work, below. Both are available in manuscript at the Library for the Performing Arts (Mus. Res. *MNX Voigtlander. Moderne Viole D’Amour Spieler; and Mus. Res. *MNZ Voigtlander. 42 Studien übertragen für die Viole d’amour):

Listemann. "The Listemann Quartet at Dr. Anderson's". Photocopy of newspaper society page article in the possession of Deb Zebrowski. Neither the name of the newspaper nor the date of publication were preserved.)

MAS. "In the World of Music; The Musical Art Society's Concert at Carnegie Hall." Photocopy of newspaper clipping, [March 1897], no Newspaper name, about the second concert of the fourth season of the Musical Arts Society at Carnegie Hall. Photocopy in the possession of Gordon Childs.

MAS-NYT. "The Musical Arts Society". Article in the New York Times, 19 March 1897 [The date is written in the margin as 1899, but it has to be 1897.] about the second concert of the fourth season of the Musical Arts Society at Carnegie Hall. Photocopy in the possession of Gordon Childs.

SKETCH. Photocopy of a biographical sketch of "Walter Voigtlander, Viola Virtuoso" published on page 373 of an unknown journal sometime after 1895. Deb Zebrowski is possession of photocopy of the first column of this sketch. The rest of the sketch (presumably on page 374) was not photocopied. The header on the page has been cut, leaving only the last four letters: "RNAL". Gordon Childs has another photocopy with a few lines cut off from the article on page 373, and the date 1896 written in the margin.