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Jean Joseph Bott (9 March 1826 – 28 April 1895) was a German violinist and composer who emigrated to the United States late in his life.

Biography

He was born in Cassel, Grand Duchy of Hesse, where he received his first musical instruction from his father, a court musician. At the age of 9, he was proficient enough to make a performance tour of the Netherlands with his father. After winning the Frankfurt Mozart scholarship in 1841, he began studies of theory and composition under Moritz Hauptmann and violin under Louis Spohr, and after two years of study entered the Cassel court orchestra, where he became concertmaster at the age of 17.

In 1846, he left Cassel to travel through the German-speaking lands. He played before William I, the King of Prussia, and was accompanied by Liszt and Meyerbeer. In 1852 he was made second Hofkapellmeister at Cassel, but was dismissed in 1856. In 1857, he became court kapellmeister at Meiningen, and then in 1865 accepted a similar position in the Kingdom of Hanover. On 20 May 1877 Bott was drunk and fell off the podium while conducting a performance of Liszt's oratorio Die Legende von der Heilige Elisabeth. He was pensioned off and went to Magdeburg to direct the Conservatory there, and in 1880 he went to Braunschweig, where he compiled an encyclopedia on musicians and music. In 1883, he was giving concerts in Hamburg.

In 1885 he came to New York. While in the United States, he made it a practice to visit Hamburg every summer. He reportedly died from grief over the loss of his 1725 Stradivarius violin, which was stolen from him on 31 March 1894. After Bott's death, a violin was found in the store of the instrument dealer Victor S. Flechter at 23 Union Square, which his widow Mathilde (born Blomeyer) said was the stolen violin. She pointed to various identifying features, and two violin makers, August Gemünder and John Friedrich, testified that it was a Stradivarius, contradicting a Mr. Ross who had purchased the violin from Flechter and said he did not think it a Stradivarius. Flechter was acquitted after the violin was determined to not be Bott's, but was indicted a second time and convicted for receiving stolen property. Bott's violin was discovered by chance at a pawn shop in 1900. The case received widespread newspaper coverage and was one of the cases recounted in Arthur Train's True Stories of Crime from the District Attorney's Office(1908).

Family

In Meiningen, Bott married Matilde Blomeyer in 1861. Their son entered the German army in 1894, and turned 23 in 1895.

Works

His works comprise two operas — Der Unbekannte (The Unknown, 1854) and Aktäa, das Mädchen von Korinth (Actea, the maid from Corinth, 1862) — and symphonies, overtures, violin concertos, pianoforte music, solos for violin, and songs.

Notes

References

"Musician Bott's Violin". The New York Times. 6 July 1895.
"Jean Joseph Bott". operone.de. Retrieved 24 January 2012.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Bott, Jean Joseph" . New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.

External links

"Jean Joseph Bott". NYPL Digital Gallery. Retrieved 24 January 2012. Portrait with signature.
"Cozio Archive". Tarisio: Fine Instruments and Bows. Retrieved 14 September 2024.</ref>