Heinrich Esser

Heinrich Esser (Mannheim, 1818 – Salzburg, 1872) was a German conductor and composer who held important posts in musical life in Mainz and Vienna during the second half of the nineteenth century. His career is useful for understanding how court chapels and choral societies of the period functioned, as well as his connections with Richard Wagner.

He began his training in his native Mannheim, where he studied violin with Jakob Heinefetter and harmony with Carl Eschborn, both members of the Mannheim orchestra. He later followed Franz Lachner to Munich in 1837 and, briefly, received lessons from Simon Sechter in Vienna between 1839 and 1840. In 1838 he was appointed concertino of the Mannheim Nationaltheater. From 1840 he directed the Liedertafel of Mainz, although he probably did not begin his work until the following year, and in 1845 he became its Kapellmeister.

Two years later he succeeded Otto Nicolai at the head of the Vienna Court Opera, a post he held until November 1869, when his broken health forced him to resign. He then retired to Salzburg, where he died in 1872. During these years he also served as an adviser to the publisher Franz Schott, on whose behalf he put Wagner in contact with the firm; Wagner further entrusted him with the piano reduction of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Esser recommended Hans Richter as a copyist.

As a composer, his comic operas Thomas Riquiqui oder Die politische Heirath and Die zwei Prinzen were the best received, and both were published by Schott. The score of his first opera, Sitas, has been lost. His output also includes numerous songs, male and mixed choral works, wind quintets and septets, string quartets, and four of his five orchestral works, which were performed with the Vienna Philharmonic. His contemporaries praised above all his command of counterpoint, although Hanslick felt that his two comedies did not justify aspiring to a greater career as an opera composer. Today his legacy is chiefly that of a practical, well-connected musician whose greatest achievement lay in the craft of conducting and in mediating between other musicians.