Hegar Friedrich Hegar

Friedrich Hegar (1841 – 1927) was a Swiss composer, conductor, and founding conductor of Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich.

He was the eldest and most successful son of Ernst Friedrich Hegar (1816-1888), owner of a music engraving firm in Basle. Friedrich Hegar studied first in Basle and then from 1857 to 1859 at the Leipzig Conservatory under Hauptmann, Rietz and David; during the same period he was a violinist at the Gewandhaus. In 1860 he became the leading violinist of the Bilse orchestra in Warsaw. After visiting Paris and London he returned to Basle, but in 1861 was appointed conductor of the choir and orchestra at Gebweiler in Alsace. A year later Theodor Kirchner summoned him to Zürich; he settled there and contributed greatly to its musical life for more than half a century. From 1862 to 1865 he was Konzertmeister of the newly established orchestra, then becoming its conductor (until 1906). He also directed various choirs: in 1863 that of the Aktientheater; from 1865 the Gemischter Chor (until 1901) and the Stadtsängerverein (until 1867); from 1875 to 1878 the male choir Harmonie; and from 1891 to 1896 the Lehrergesangverein. He helped to found the Zürich Music School (which became the conservatory) and was later appointed director. Together with Carl Attenhofer and the painter Arnold Böcklin, he received the honorary doctorate of the University of Zürich in 1889; in 1917 he became a member of the Royal Academy of the Arts in Berlin.

Hegar’s influence as a conductor in Zürich can hardly be overestimated. He gave 101 performances of Brahms, 57 of Bach and 115 concert performances of Wagner. He achieved some fame as the composer of the oratorio Manasse, but was chiefly known through his work with Zürich’s male-voice choirs, which he transformed from informal Liedertafel into serious musical institutions. A corresponding development occurred in his male-voice choral compositions, which increasingly reveal symphonic features, with the part-writing gradually assuming an almost orchestral treatment.

Of Hegar’s brothers, Emil was first cellist at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and later taught singing in Basle, and Julius taught the violin and the cello at the Zürich Music School. His son Johannes was mainly known as the cellist of the Frankfurter Trio, and of the Hugo Heermann, the Reber and the Berber quartets.