Louise Caroline Reichardtaus classic

Louise Caroline Reichardt (* April 11, 1779 in Berlin; † November 17, 1826 in Hamburg), was a German singer, composer, music teacher and founder of a women’s choir.

Life

Louise Reichardt’s family initially lived in Berlin, where she was baptized in the Holy Trinity Church. Her godmother was Princess L(o)uise von Anhalt-Dessau, a patron of her father. Louise Reichardt was brought up and educated by her father, the composer and writer Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who, however, traveled frequently and for long periods of time. Her mother was the singer and composer Juliane Benda-Reichardt, the youngest daughter of the violinist and composer Franz Benda. She died in 1783, when Louise Reichardt was four years old, after giving birth to a daughter; one of Reichardt’s brothers had already died a year earlier. As a small child, Louise Reichardt suffered from smallpox, which left conspicuous scars all over her face. At the end of 1783, her father married Johanna Alberti (1755-1827), a member of the Alberti family of pastors and later a sister-in-law of Ludwig Tieck. Well-known poets often frequented the Reichardt household.

Louise Reichardt learned to play the piano, harp, lute and guitar on her own. She was also largely self-trained in singing; she is said to have had a very warm-sounding, full voice. However, her father did not allow her to perform in public, except in church or in private circles.

In 1791, the family moved to the Giebichenstein estate near Halle, known as the “Hostel of Romanticism”. Here Louise Reichardt met Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ludwig Tieck, the brothers August Wilhelm Schlegel and Friedrich Schlegel, Clemens Brentano, Achim von Arnim and Bettina von Arnim, Novalis, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Wilhelm Grimm, Johann Heinrich Voß, Joseph von Eichendorff, Jean Paul, Carl Friedrich Zelter, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with Christiane von Goethe and Mozart’s widow Constanze, some of whom stayed there for longer periods of time.

In 1794, their father was dishonorably dismissed as court conductor without pension entitlement; he was only pardoned a few years later. Reichardt’s stepbrother drowned while ice-skating in 1801. Louise Reichardt found support and consolation in composing and setting poems to folk songs (e.g. by Tieck, von Arnim, Brentano). Singing together with her siblings – one biological sister, three step-siblings and five half-siblings – was particularly close to her heart, as was their upbringing and education, for which she later also took financial responsibility. Her youngest brother Carl Friedrich later became an internationally renowned architect and author.

Louise Reichardt’s fiancé, the poet Friedrich Eschen, died in a mountaineering accident. In 1803, her bridegroom Franz Gareis, a painter, also died on an educational trip to Italy. As a result of the Napoleonic warfare, Reichardt’s father’s house was devastated in 1806; the family found temporary accommodation with relatives in Berlin and Halle. After returning to the makeshift family estate, she suffered from constant financial hardship.

Louise Reichardt had plans to become a music teacher and went to Hamburg in 1809, where the family had relatives and close friends, against the wishes of her father, who considered this unseemly. She lived in the house of the banker Jerome Sillem and then permanently with his mother, Marie Louise Sillem (1749-1826). Louise Reichardt also took part in the regular house concerts held in the large hall of her town house (Große Reichenstraße 28), for example in performances of Handel’s oratorios. Louise Reichardt’s circle of friends included the families of Amalie Sieveking, the painter Philipp Otto Runge, the bookseller Friedrich Christoph Perthes and the poet and journalist Matthias Claudius.

Louise Reichardt worked as a singing teacher in collaboration with Johann Heinrich Clasing. She founded a music school for women and the first women’s choir (Gesangsverein 1816, Singakademie 1819). Her aim was to popularize the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel, and she and her students took part in public performances, e.g. of the “Messiah” in St. Michael’s Church in 1818. With an initially good income, she led a modest life based on her faith and spent her earnings generously on her projects and supporting the needy.

Due to declining health and increasing competitive pressure, her situation gradually deteriorated. Marie Louise Sillem had bequeathed her a monthly pension after her death to enable her to spend a dignified old age in another home.
Louise Reichardt died in 1826 and was buried in St. John’s Churchyard on November 23rd of that year. The eulogy was delivered by Johann Heinrich Mutzenbecher (1772-1844), deacon of St. Petri. Her pupils sang two chorales that she had composed only a short time before.

Reichardtstraße has existed in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld since 1929, named after Johann Friedrich Reichardt and supplemented in 2001/2002 by Louise Caroline Reichardt.

Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Reichardt