Theodor Avé-Lallemant

Johann Theodor Friedrich Avé-Lallemant (born 2 February 1806 in Magdeburg; d. 9 November 1890 in Hamburg) was a German musician and music teacher.

The son of a music teacher, Avé-Lallemant studied music (French horn, organ, and piano) from the age of nine, in Greifswald and Lübeck, before settling in Hamburg in 1828. Here he worked as a music teacher until 1874 and came to play a leading role in the Hanseatic city's music life. Thus, in 1838 he was appointed to the board of directors of the Philharmonic Society (Philharmonie), eventually becoming its chairman and director of concerts. In 1841, he organized the third North German Music Festival in Hamburg, the largest event of its kind in Germany, and in 1847 he was one of the founders of the "Hamburger Tonkünstlerverein" (Musicians' Association).

Avé-Lallemant married, in 1840, Wilhelmina of the Jauch family, the daughter of a wealthy Hamburg merchant. They had six children, and the godfathers of two of their sons were Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Avé-Lallemant was also on friendly terms with other notable musicians, including Clara Schumann, Josef Joachim, and .

Peter Tchaikovsky was introduced to Avé-Lallemant in January 1888 when the Russian composer arrived in Hamburg to conduct a concert of his own music at the Philharmonie. The concert, which featured the Serenade for String Orchestra, the Piano Concerto No. 1 (soloist Vasily Sapelnikov), and the Theme and Variations from the Suite No. 3, took place on 8/20 January, and two days later Tchaikovsky, accompanied by his German publisher Daniel Rahter, called on Avé-Lallemant and spent a few hours at his house. The entry which he made in his diary that evening reflects something of the cordial atmosphere in which those hours were spent : "After dinner visit to Avé-Lallemant. The old man touched me by his invitation nach Deutschland zu übersiedeln [to emigrate to Germany]", and Tchaikovsky would describe their conversation in more detail in the account of his concert tour which he wrote up a few months later in his Autobiographical Account of a Tour Abroad in the Year 1888 (Chapter XI):

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