Carl Oestreich (1800-1840)

Biography

Carl Wilhelm Eduard Oestreich was born April 18, 1800 in Spremberg, Saxony (Germany). He studied in Dresden at the Royal Chapel, and composed from the age of 16 with emphasis on the horn, the instrument he must have been playing well from all evidence. The fact that he dedicated his horn trios (published in 1830) to the brothers August and Louis Haase, his “esteemed friends” (both hornists in the Dresden Court Orchestra), permits us to suppose that he studied with them.

As a virtuoso, he frequently performed throughout Germany before settling in Frankfurt in 1820 as a hornist in the theater orchestra and a professor of music. In 1832 he went into early retirement because of an illness or incapacity to work, and he died in 1840 in the prime of his life, leaving behind a destitute widow with four children. He wrote many works, mainly for the horn