Background
Bernhard Listemann was born on August 28, 1841 at Schlotheim, Thuringia, Germany, the son of Wilhelm and Henrietta Listemann. His father was a merchant.
Bernhard Listemann was born on August 28, 1841 at Schlotheim, Thuringia, Germany, the son of Wilhelm and Henrietta Listemann. His father was a merchant.
Bernhard showed early exceptional musical ability. He had instruction at the Leipzig Conservatory from Ferdinand David and at Vienna from Joseph Joachim and Henry Vieuxtemps.
In 1856, age only 15, Bernard Listemann played in the first violin section of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. From 1858 to 1867 Listemann was concert master at the residence of the Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt.
In 1868 he came with his brother Fritz to the United States. He spent a year in New York and then joined the orchestra of the Harvard Musical Association in Boston. Finding that "the programs were very conservative in character and reflected the conservatism of the patrons of the concerts, " he presently secured employment as concert master of the Theodore Thomas Orchestra during the seasons from 1871 to 1874. In 1875 Listemann founded the Boston Philharmonic Club which gave many concerts, local and national. From this nucleus grew the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, which, without financial guaranty, engaged famous artists and presented notable programs.
In 1880 Listemann produced for the first time in Boston both the "Faust" and the "Dante" of Abbe Liszt. When, a year later, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, founded by Major Henry L. Higginson, gave its first concert with Georg Henschel as conductor, Listemann was concert master. His musicianship contributed toward the initial successes of the orchestra, but he remained with it only four seasons. He was one of several musicians who left the Symphony when Wilhelm Gericke began his first conductorship; "whether they were dismissed for musical or disciplinary reasons, the public knew only that they were gone".
Listemann remained for a time in Boston where he taught, served as conductor of the Boston Amateur Orchestral Club and directed a string quartet. He accepted in 1893 an offer to head the violin department of the Chicago Musical College, founded by Florenz Ziegfeld, Sr. The rest of his career was that of a successful instructor and performer at Chicago. His quartet was active down to the period of the World War and he often appeared as a soloist. His death was caused by heart disease.
Listemann was a pioneer in introducing Wagner music to American audiences and a leader of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He organized the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and Listemann String Quartet. He had hundreds of pupils; among the most distinguished were Francis Macmillan and Benjamin Cutter. Among his professional publications was his Method of Modern Violin Playing, brought out by Oliver Ditson & Company in 1869.
Listemann was described by the Symphony's historian, M. A. DeWolfe Howe, as "a very superior artist in his way, " but "a man of too much impulsive initiative to follow any one's beat implicitly. "
Listemann married, July 25, 1870, Sophie Sungershausen. He had four sons, and a daughter.
