Andreas Moser

Born in Zemun, Syrmia, Austrian Empire, Moser was the son of a winegrower and smoker from Upper Austria. As a child he received violin lessons and sang in the church choir. His high school singing teacher was Friedrich Hegar. From 1874, Moser attended the Zurich Kantonsschule. After graduating from high school, he first studied engineering at the Technical University of Zurich and architecture in Stuttgart. In addition to his studies, he gained further musical experience, among other things as first violinist of the "Zurich Student Quartet" and conductor of the Stuttgart Academic Singing Association. He finally turned his attention to music for good and in 1878 became a student of Joseph Joachim at the Berlin University of the Arts. The following year, Moser took up a post as assistant teacher there.

In 1883 he received his first position as concertmaster at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, but had to give it up after a few months for health reasons. He worked first as a private violin teacher and from 1888 as a lecturer at the Berlin Musikhochschule. In 1900 he was appointed full professor for violin there. Among his students were Pálma von Pászthory, Josef Wolfsthal, Robert Imandt, Richard Czerwonky, Hans Bassermann and Julius Ruthström. In 1925, the philosophical faculty of the University of Berlin awarded him an honorary doctorate.[1]

Moser played as violist in the Joachim Quartet and led his own string quartet in the 1890s, which performed in Berlin. However, he suffered from a "nervous complaint of the arm" (E. van der Straeten), which prevented him from performing regularly, so he concentrated on teaching. In Berlin he became Joachim's most important assistant and wrote music-theoretical publications with him, especially the three-volume Violin School of 1905. He also published a biography of Joachim, edited a collection of letters between Brahms and Joachim and, after Joachim's death, published Methodik des Violinspiels (Leipzig, 1920) and Technik des Violinspiels (Leipzig, 1925) and was active as editor of violin literature with Edition Peters and the Universal Edition.[2]

From 1888, Moser was married to Edda (1868-1930), daughter of the writer Rudolf Elcho. The marriage produced a son, the musicologist Hans Joachim Moser.[3]

In 1925 Moser retired and moved to Heidelberg. He suffered from throat cancer and died the same year in Berlin aged 65 as a result of an operation.[1][4]

• Literature by and about Andreas Moser in the German National Library catalogue
• Moser, Andreas on BMLO