Robert Hausmann

Robert Hausmann (13 August 1852 – 18 January 1909) was a notable 19th-century German cellist who premiered important works by Johannes Brahms (including the Double Concerto) and Max Bruch (including Kol Nidrei). He was also a teacher and a minor composer.

Robert Hausmann was born in Rottleberode, Harz, in present-day Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. He entered the Gymnasium in Brunswick at age eight in 1861, where his cello studies proceeded under Theodor Müller. In 1869 he was one of the first pupils of the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where he studied under Müller's nephew Wilhelm Müller, under the general guidance of the violinist Joseph Joachim. Joachim introduced him to the great Italian cellist and teacher Carlo Alfredo Piatti, who taught him in London and also at his estate at Cadenabbia on Lake Como, Italy.

He then entered the string quartet of Count Hochberg in Silesia from 1872 to 1876, when he was appointed a professor of cello at the Berlin Hochschule. He became principal professor on the retirement of Wilhelm Müller. From 1878 until Joseph Joachim's death in 1907 he was the cellist of the Joachim Quartet, alongside Joachim himself (1st violin), Karel Halíř (2nd violin) and Emanuel Wirth (viola). He was always a very active chamber music player, renowned in Germany, in Europe more generally, and in London.

In 1879-80, Charles Villiers Stanford wrote a Cello Concerto in D minor for Robert Hausmann. This followed Hausmann's championing in England and Europe of Stanford's Cello Sonata, Op. 9, which he had introduced with the composer on piano on 1 May 1877 and which was dedicated to him. It was the first significant British cello sonata. The Concerto in D minor is the only existing cello concerto from the late 19th century by an important British composer. But the work was never published, and only the slow movement was ever performed (in a cello and piano arrangement in 1884). It was revived in the 21st century by Dr George Burrows from the University of Portsmouth, who compiled an edition from the only two surviving manuscript sources - an early draft (1879) for cello and piano, containing some solo cello markings by Robert Hausmann, and an autograph full score (1880).

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