Hugo Walter Voigtlander
As a youth he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig and played violin and viola in several professional orchestras in Germany.
Voigtlander, who usually went by the name Walter, was born on 8 November 1859 in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony to Hermann Ludwig and Auguste Voigtländer.
On 4 October 1879, he entered the Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig, where he studied violin with Henry Schradieck and viola with Friedrich Hermann.
[1] While he was a student, he also played violin as an assistant member of the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Theater Orchestra under the baton of such famous conductors as Carl Reinecke, Artur Nikisch, Anton Seidl,[2] and Hans von Bülow.
[3] When the string quartet disbanded after ten years, he played viola for a short time with the George Lehmann Quartet in Chicago[2] In 1895, he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he spent two years as the principal violist in the newly formed Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Frederic Archer.
On 18 March 1897, he played two viola d'amore solos in Carnegie Hall accompanied by the Musical Art Society of New York under the direction of Frank Damrosch.
[4] Following a 1903 concert by the Kaltenborn Quartet in New York's Mendelssohn Hall, the New York Times critic wrote: The program contained also a nocturne by Kral for viola and viola d'amore played by Mr. Kaltenborn and Mr. Walter Voightlander, who is making an interesting attempt to revive the charming and almost obsolete instrument with the sympathetic strings and the strange, sweet tone.
[5]Walter Voigtlander spent the rest of his life in New York City as a professional orchestra musician.
[2](According his descendants, Voigtlander's association with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra came to an abrupt end in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I when he was let go from that organization for being a native German.)
[6] Besides leaving a legacy as a professional violinist, violist, and viola d'amore player, he is known for other musical accomplishments, as well.
This is a basic pedagogical method, which starts the player from the most elementary elements of the instrument and progresses to a fair level of difficulty.
The book also discusses at some length the making of the instrument, including full-sized plans for one, with his own modifications, intended to strengthen the instrument for modern purposes, including remedying its "uneven weak tone...without changing the characteristic tone of the viole d'amour" (Voightlander, c.1913).
