This section of the Virtual Archive gives the location of all of Carl Baermann’s surviving correspondence, together with digitisations, summaries or full contents where possible. The intention behind collecting this material was to understand Baermann’s place in relation to familiar figures, places and events in nineteenth-century music history, as well as to identify material that may be pertinent to understanding his identity as a musician. These materials have been essential in filling out details of Baermann’s travels from the 1830s to 1860s, uncovering his wide-reaching network of friends and associates, and understanding his involvement in the cosmopolitan artistic milieu of his time. Baermann’s letters show that he interacted on equal and often intimate terms with some of the most prominent musical figures of the mid-nineteenth century. It is clear that, like his father, Baermann was highly respected for both his artistic judgement and influence, and that his assistance and his society were regularly sought out by those who visited Munich.This collection documents all known correspondence involving Carl Baermann, and a selection involving to his father Heinrich.

Scope

What has been identified is a tiny fraction of the typical volume of correspondance sent by a musician in the 19th century. At the present time, over 150 letters and around 60 different correspondents have been identified. Carl’s correspondents include Franz Liszt, Clara Schumann, Fanny Hensel, Wilhelm Taubert, Jakob Rosenhain, writer Ludwig Nohl, and the Dresden clarinetist Johan Gottlieb Kotte, as well as the publishers André and Schott, and influential figures in courts and institutions in locations including Meiningen, Wurzburg, Prague, and Darmstadt.

While the focus here is primarily on Carl, selected items of correspondence to or from his father Heinrich Baermann have also been included. During the 1820s-1840s, father and son toured together and it is evident that Heinrich took responsibility for maintaining relationships in which Carl also participated. These items are instructive in illustrating these relationships, as well as understanding the artistic atmosphere within which Carl matured, and the practical details of his early working life. Heinrich’s correspondents during this period includes Pierre Baillot, Hector Berlioz, Adalbert Gyrowetz, Gasparo Spontini, Stephen Heller, and Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda. Heinrich’s extensive surviving correspondence with Carl Maria von Weber has not been included here as it pre-dates his son becoming active as a musician, but it can be viewed on the online Weber-Gesamtsausgabe.

The most extensive and documented bodies of shared correspondence are with Felix Mendelssohn (1830-1843, primarily with Heinrich but also with Carl); and Giacomo Meyerbeer (1815–1847, primarily with Heinrich, though Meyerbeer’s diary indicates that he maintained a relationship with Carl until the last years of his life in the 1860s). It is clear that Heinrich's correspondence with these composers is better represented than Carl's: auction catalogues and references within the letters allude to further contact between Carl and both Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn that has is not included in the published collections, perhaps because Carl took more care to preserve his father's letters than his own; and because Heinrich's more prominent posthumous reputation made it more likely for his correspondence to be preserved by scholars.

Sources

Currently, this virtual collection draws primarily on the following resources: the Kalliope Union Catalogue, covering personal papers held in German, Swiss and Austrian libraries; items listed in digitised German auction catalogues, accessed through the Heidelberg Open Access Collections database; and online resources including the Weber-Gesamtarchiv, Schumann-Briefendatabank and Brahms-Briefwechsel-Verzeichnis. Published collections of the complete letters of Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, von Poissl and other major figures were consulted, as well as the M. Deneke Mendelssohn Collection at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (UK).

Where possible, digitisations of the original manuscript are embedded using IIIF, with links back to the holding library. Where available and relevant, a transcription in the original language and/or an English language summary of the contents is provided. Where the only surviving record of the contents of a letter is an excerpt in an auction catalogue, this has been transcribed in full. 

Transcriptions and Translations

Transcriptions are taken from the source or contributor cited. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are based on the Deepl Neural Machine Translation (NMT) software, and post-edited by Emily Worthington. NMT has been used in order to make as much material as possible accessible to non-German readers in the most efficient way. These translations should be treated as a guide to the contents of the letters, not a definitive or critical edition, and we advise checking with a native speaker before using them in your own publications. You may use the comment feature to report errors and suggest alternate readings. For a longer discussion of post-edited NMT in this project, see this page.