Karel Hanke

Johann Carl Hanke (c.1749 - 10 June 1803) was a German composer and conductor.

Life He was baptised at Markt Roßwald on 5 December 1749, son of Anton (a citizen of that village) and Maria Magdalena. The Hanke family was frequently mentioned in the Silesian-Moravian border region and several of its members worked as organists and cantors. No documents survive on Johann Carl's childhood or youth, though count Albert Joseph von Hoditz gave him a place in the children's orchestra at the Schloss Roßwald and so it can be assumed he first took violin lessons at an early age. Famous opera and theatre productions took place at the Schloss around that time, often conducted by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf. From 1776 to 1778 Hanke led the court musicians and choir back in Roßwald, where he also completed several ballets, orchestral and chamber works, and cantatas for special occasions.

In Roßwald in 1778 he married Anna Maria Stormke (1760-?), with whom he had one child, a daughter. Anna Maria's father Franz Joseph Stormke was a steward and had married Anna Rosina (née Just), also in Roßwald. Robert und Hannchen or Die hat der Teufel geholt (originally Der Wunsch mancher Mädchen) (libretto by Karl Martin Plümicke), comic two-act singspiel, Warsaw 1781 Gesänge und Chöre zum lustigen Tag or Die Hochzeit des Figaro, Hamburg 1785 Xaphire (libretto by Bernhard Christoph d’Arien), large-scale romantic opera, Hamburg 1786 Dr. Fausts Leibgürtel (libretto by Bernhard Christoph d'Arien after Rousseau and Mylius), two-act comic opera, ca. 1786; Flensburg 1794 Hüon und Amande (libretto by Friederike Sophie Seyler after Wieland's Oberon), romantic opera, Schleswig 1789/1790

Bibliography (in German) Cornelius Kellner: 'Hanke, Carl'. In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart., second edition, Personenteil, Vol. 8 (Gribenski – Hilverding). Bärenreiter/Metzler, Kassel etc. 2002, ISBN 3-7618-1118-7

Cornelius Kellner: Hanke, Carl. in: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein und Lübeck. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Bd. 12 – 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7, Seite 159–162.