HEINICKE, AUGUST MORITZ HERMANN (1863-1949), musician, was born on 21
July 1863 at Dresden, Saxony, son of August Moritz Hermann Heinicke, brush
manufacturer, and his wife, amateur musicians. From 10 Heinicke studied at the
Royal Conservatorium of Music, Dresden; among his teachers was the violin
virtuoso, Eduard Rappoldi. ….
In 1890 he was
appointed violin teacher at the Adelaide College of Music; contracts had been
signed in Berlin. He was met in Adelaide on 12 June by college founders
Gotthold Reimann and Cecil Sharp who recognized him by
his long hair, 'surely the best characteristic by which to recognise a German
musician'. Soon he was acclaimed as Adelaide's premier violinist and violin
teacher: …
When theElder
Conservatorium of Music opened at the University of Adelaide in 1898, the
college closed and Heinicke became a senior teacher there.
His other major impact in the 1890s was as a
conductor. In 1893 Charles Cawthorne’s Adelaide Orchestra had become Heinicke's
Grand Orchestra, with forty-five players; it soon became the most popular of
the local musical groups. Heinicke planned to provide popular programmes, then
to cultivate the taste of players and audience for orchestral music. In 1898
his group was known as the Conservatorium Grand Orchestra, including students
and amateurs, but university regulations prevented his continuing as conductor
when it became the Adelaide Grand Orchestra. Heinicke continued to conduct a
depleted conservatorium orchestra until 1910. Next year he reformed his Grand
Orchestra which survived until 1914.
….. In 1931 he formed his last orchestra, the
Adelaide Philharmonic, arranging three concerts in the Exhibition Hall and
mainly using unemployed musicians; but they failed financially.
Early pictures of
Heinicke show him as debonair, confident, with a jauntily twisted moustache.
Loved by his family and students, he was a perfectionist with his pupils and
often impatient. He had a sense of humour, but 'professionally, took himself a
bit seriously'. ..
From
Australian Dictionary of Biography