Carl Götze (father)

Carl Götze was born in Kleinmölsen (Germany) in 1836 (few other sources give 1840). His father was the famous singer and singing teacher Carl Götze (1814-1888) and so this Carl Götze received music lessons from an early age. After school he enrolled at the Großherzogliche Musikschule Weimar and studied under Johann Gottlob Töpfer, Ludwig Ernst Gebhardi and later Franz Liszt. Since 1855 Carl Götze worked as repetiteur at the Hoftheater in Weimar and became Franz Liszt’s most respected copyist (together with Alexander Wilhelm Gottschalg). Franz Liszt wrote on 9 October 1870 to Gottschalg: „Again I recommended that you or Götze make copies of Schubert's marches. Ordinary copyists are no use for this.“
In 1869 Carl Götze left Weimar and started a long-lasting journey with positions as kapellmeister at many different orchestras. He first moved to Berlin and worked at the Nowacktheater, then at the Kroll-Theater and the Walhallatheater (1870). Then Breslau (1871), Düsseldorf (1872), Chemnitz (1874), Halle (1877), Danzig (1880) and Dessau (1883) followed. In 1886 Carl Götze was awarded the Order of Albert the Bear from the Duke of Anhalt for his musical activities. Carl Götze finally changed his kapellmeister position in 1887 and moved to Magdeburg. There he died on 14 January 1887.

In my possession are a few autograph manuscripts by Carl Götze (father) which were part of the musical estate of his son Franz Götze. For that reason I have created a finding aid for the complete Götze Archive that contains biographies, work catalogues and information on the autographs for all members of the Götze family:

Trio for violin, cello and piano

The Trio for violin, cello and piano op.115 was composed in 1882. I have no information about a performance, but I think it remained unperformed during the lifetime of Carl Götze. The reason for this view is the fact that the son of Carl Götze, Franz Götze, copied this work nearly note by note and dedicated the composition under his name to his teacher Carl Müllerhartung. I assume Franz Götze did this kind of fraud after the death of his father in 1887 and due to the fact that the composition was unknown to others. The presented score here is the original work by Carl Götze (father) from 1882: