Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski

Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski (17 June 1822 – 13 December 1896) was a German violinist, conductor, and musicologist.

Wasielewski was born on June 17, 1822 in the village of Groß-Leesen (Polish: Leźno), near Danzig as the eighth of eleven children of Henriette Christina Piwko (1788–1850) and Josef Thaddäus von Wasielewski (1785–1850), a landholder and later Rector of the Danzig convent school of St. Brigitta. His father gave him his first lessons in playing the violin, which soon became his favorite instrument. At age 10, he began studies at Danzig's St. Peter and Paul Academy.

On April 2, 1842, Wasielewski was accepted into the newly founded Leipzig Conservatory of Music, directed by Felix Mendelssohn. In addition to Mendelssohn, he studied with such renowned teachers as Robert Schumann, Moritz Hauptmann, and Ferdinand David. He joined the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1846 as a violinist. As a successful student, he had many avenues of opportunity, as a letter by Mendelssohn, written to Wasielewski's father on September 17, 1849, attests:

Your son has excelled from the start to gain favor amongst the pupils in the institution through an excellent manner, through hard work and persistence, and through unremitting zeal. His efficient and robust temper is free from dry or affected coercion, and his musical talent and genuine love of art leads him away from wild freedom and disorder. You have given him a proper upbringing, which would have still have been insufficient without such natural traits. From no direction has there been spoken even the slightest complaint or criticism about your son. On the contrary, his progress has been so remarkable that, for example, on the violin, the concertmaster David recently remarked to me that your sone is already such a good and capable musician that, should he remain in good health, nothing could stop him in any place from gaining recognition for his own achievements and contributions to art for its own honor.

Robert Schumann called Wasielewski as concertmaster of the Düsseldorf Musikverein in 1850. He soon developed strong relations with the Schumanns, finding close expression though playing chamber music with them in public and private.

...
Wikipedia