Robert Volkmann

Friedrich Robert Volkmann (6 April 1815 – 30 October 1883) was a German composer. Life Robert Volkmann was born in Lommatzsch near Meißen in the Kingdom of Saxony. His father, a music director for a church, trained him in music to prepare him as a successor. Thus, Volkmann learned to play the organ and the piano with his father, studied violin and cello with Friebel, and by age 12, he was playing the cello part in string quartets by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. In 1832, he entered the Freiberg Gymnasium for the purpose of becoming a teacher. There he studied music with August Ferdinand Anacker, who encouraged him to devote himself to music more fully. From there he went on to Leipzig in 1836 to study with Carl Ferdinand Becker. In Leipzig, he met Robert Schumann who encouraged him in his studies. They met again several times after that. When he finished his studies, he began working as voice teacher at a music school in Prague. He did not stay there long, and in 1841 he moved to Budapest, where he was employed as a piano teacher and a reporter for the Allgemeine Wiener Musik-Zeitung. After a short period of freelance work, he became the choirmaster and organist of a Reform synagogu