Ignaz Lachner

Who was Ignaz Lachner?

Ignaz Lachner was a German composer and conductor.

Lachner was born into a musical family at Rain am Lech. He was the second of the three famous Lachner brothers. Lachner's brothers Franz and Vinzenz were also composers. His older brother Franz was the best known, having heavily traded on his youthful friendship with Franz Schubert, certainly more than Ignaz who also knew Schubert. Ignaz was taught organ, piano and violin. Upon the latter instrument, he was somewhat of a prodigy, but despite this, his father insisted he become a teacher. After his father’s death, he studied violin with Bernhard Molique, a violin virtuoso and then joined his brother Franz in Vienna where he too befriended and was influenced by Schubert, as well as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

In 1826, he became organist at the Reformed Church in Vienna and then a member of the orchestra at the Hofoperntheater. He was appointed a Music Director in Stuttgart in 1831 and soon thereafter in Munich. From 1853, Lachner served as a Kapellmeister in Hamburg and moved into the same position again in 1861 at the Stadttheater in Frankfurt, from which he retired in 1875. He died in Hanover.