1786–1872 · Germany · Romantic
Conrad Kocher (1786–1872) was a German musician and composer, chiefly of church music. Born in Ditzingen, he gave private piano lessons for several years in St Petersburg and then lived in Stuttgart, where he served as organist and head of music at the main Protestant church of Württemberg. The site has one of his chorale tunes for choir.
Conrad Kocher was born in Ditzingen on 16 December 1786. He was the son of the shoemaker Georg Jakob Kocher and his wife Anna, née Wolfangel. The house on Marktstrasse where the future composer was born no longer stands. His teachers and the local pastor noticed the boy's talent early and supported him.
At fourteen he began training as an elementary-school teacher. His teacher Johannes Hahl taught him to play the organ. In 1801 Kocher became an assistant teacher in Schönaich, and in 1803 he took a post as Provisor in Esslingen. He was dissatisfied with the life of an assistant.
Kocher accepted an offer to become a private tutor in St Petersburg. When he arrived, the post had already been given to someone else. For almost seven years he lived in the Russian capital, working as a private piano teacher.
He gained access to higher society and met the composer and piano manufacturer Muzio Clementi. Clementi encouraged him and urged him to devote himself entirely to music. The Swabian musician received the rest of his musical training from Clementi's pupils, the pianists Ludwig Berger and August Alexander Klengel.
In 1811 Kocher returned to Württemberg and settled in Stuttgart as a piano teacher. It was then that he began to compose: first a few piano pieces, then four operas in all. Two of them, Der Käficht and Der Elfenkönig, were staged at the court theatre in Stuttgart under the management of Konradin Kreutzer and Johann Nepomuk Hummel.
Thanks to the Stuttgart publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta, Kocher was able to hand his setting of Goethe's singspiel Jery und Bätely to the poet in person in Weimar. Goethe recommended him to the Leipzig music critic Johann Friedrich Rochlitz, who probably helped with the first performance of Kocher's oratorio Der Tod Abels in Leipzig. His career as a stage composer nevertheless failed. When Peter Joseph von Lindpaintner became Kapellmeister of the court theatre in 1819, local composers were gradually squeezed out of its programme.
From 1819 to 1821 Kocher studied church music in Italy, mainly in Rome. The journey was paid for by his patron Cotta. In Rome he worked closely with Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen, secretary of the Prussian legation. Both shared a love of old Italian music and a wish to improve church singing in Germany. Kocher also exchanged ideas in a friendly way with Giuseppe Baini, the director of the papal chapel.
The Orthodox liturgical singing in St Petersburg and the music of the papal chapel in Rome made a strong impression on him. They awakened a wish to reform Protestant church singing in Württemberg. Back in Stuttgart in 1823, he published a short work, Die Tonkunst in der Kirche. In it Kocher called for church singing built on simplicity and open even to the poorest peasants. From then on, with public support, he worked to improve church music in Württemberg, among other things by founding the Stuttgart church music society.
In 1825, together with Friedrich Silcher of Tübingen and Johann Georg Frech of Esslingen, Kocher published the collection Vierstimmige Gesänge der evangelischen Kirche, and in 1828 the Vierstimmiges Choralbuch für Orgel- und Klavierspieler. These books were meant to help establish four-part singing by the whole congregation. Of all his church reform projects this was his favourite, but in the 1840s he had to admit that it had failed. After 1830 a series of further publications followed, with secular and sacred choral music, as well as works for piano teaching and on harmony.
Kocher was a follower of the Swiss music educator Hans Georg Nägeli and regarded singing as an important part of popular education. His call for general, methodical singing lessons in schools was put into effect in November 1823 by a decree of the highest school authority. In 1824 he took part in founding the Stuttgart Liederkranz, a choral society. For several years he was a very prolific composer of part-songs for the Liederkranz societies springing up all over Württemberg. His song collection Bardenhain appeared in 1833–1834.
From 1827 Kocher was organist of the Stiftskirche in Stuttgart, the main Protestant church of the Kingdom of Württemberg. At first he worked alongside the director of church music, Johann Christian Ludwig Abeille. After Abeille's death in 1838 Kocher took over the post of director of church music as well and became the most respected church musician in Württemberg. He was also given the post of organ inspector of the regional church, and he had a hand in all the fundamental organ questions of the country.
In 1837–1845, on Kocher's initiative, the organ built in 1737 for Zwiefalten monastery was moved to a newly built gallery at the west end of the nave. After the monastery was closed, the organ had come to Stuttgart as a gift from King Frederick I and had been set up temporarily on a choir gallery. The work was carried out by the Ludwigsburg organ-building firm Walcker. In 1839 Kocher also took part in restoring the organ of the Konstanzer Kirche in his home town of Ditzingen.
Kocher acquired a rival: the organ virtuoso Immanuel Faißt headed the newly founded organists' school in Stuttgart and was appointed conductor of the Liederkranz. In the end Faißt replaced him as head of church music. But Kocher kept his post as organist at the church until he retired in 1865.
Kocher's main work, Die Zionsharfe, appeared in 1855. It is a four-volume chorale collection that brought together almost 2000 melodies from the Evangelical Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. Kocher dedicated it to King Frederick William IV of Prussia.
On 15 May 1828 Kocher married Luise Wilhelmine Neuffer in Ulm Minster; she was a daughter of the Ulm city pastor Christian Ludwig Neuffer. The marriage remained childless. In 1852 the philosophy faculty of the University of Tübingen awarded him an honorary doctorate. King Frederick William IV honoured him with the gold medal for art and science. From 1871 Kocher was an honorary member of the Stuttgart Liederkranz and the Swabian Singers' Association.
Until shortly before his death Kocher tirelessly collected and composed songs, chorales and organ pieces. He died in Stuttgart in 1872. He was buried in the Fangelsbach cemetery, but the grave no longer exists. In his home town of Ditzingen a street and a former school are named after him.
Kocher wrote chiefly church music. Among his publications are chorales and collections for church singing: four-part hymns for the Protestant church, chorale books for organists and pianists, and the four-volume Zionsharfe, which gathers almost 2000 melodies from different churches. In Die Tonkunst in der Kirche he called for church singing built on simplicity. He went on collecting and composing songs, chorales and organ pieces almost until his death.
In 1826 Die Macht des Gesanges, to words by Schiller, appeared in Stuttgart for four male voices. Around 1830 came the collection Vierstimmige Figural-Gesänge für die evangelische Kirche, intended for every Sunday and feast day of the year. Earlier still, in 1823, he had published Die Tonkunst in der Kirche, setting out his views on church singing for a small choir.
Another part of his work is secular music for voices. For several years he was a very productive composer of part-songs for the Liederkranz societies, and in 1833–1834 he brought out the collection Bardenhain. After 1830 he also published works for piano teaching and on harmony. At the start of his career he also wrote for the stage, four operas in all, as well as a few piano pieces. His oratorios include Der Tod Abels.
For organists, Kocher published the Orgelspielbuch in 1851 together with Friedrich Silcher and Johann Georg Frech, a collection of church and classical organ pieces. Only a little of his music is performed today: his demanding organ pieces and some of his motets. For the 200th anniversary of his birth, the oratorio Vater unser, written in 1855 and at first left unprinted, was also performed in Ditzingen. The Württemberg regional section of the Protestant hymnal contains three songs set to Kocher's melodies.
Anyone who wants to get to know Kocher can find on the site the chorale tune Dix (hymntune) for four-part mixed choir, level "Beginner+".