Stories. Neubeuern Castle.
Donation: Music collection
27.10.2023
On the occasion of a castle concert with Herbert Schuch, an exhibition was held in the library where visitors were able to take a look at a special donation: a collection of compositions from around 1900 with dedications to Julie and Jan von Wendelstadt.
The donor, Susanne Schweizer-Gollbeck, presented the collection to Schloss Neubeuern as a gift during a visit to the castle on 28 October 2023.
Her mother, Ingeburg Gollbeck-Eckener, met Marie-Therese Miller-Degenfeld in the 1970s at Gut Hinterhör in Altenbeuern and became a close friend and neighbour of hers in Nußdorf, where Marie-Therese later lived. Marie-Therese gave the musician a collection of compositions from the period 1895-1920, which came from the castle estate of Freifrau and Freiherrn von Wendelstadt. They contain compositions by guests who stayed at Schloss Neubeuern. Marie-Therese’s mother, Countess Ottonie von Degenfeld-Schonburg, inherited the collection in 1942 after the death of our school founder Julie Baroness von Wendelstadt. The daughter of Mrs Gollbeck-Eckener, Susanne Schweizer-Gollbeck.
Inge Gollbeck-Eckener was born on 27 October 1916 in Stuttgart. Both her parents were painters. The famous Zeppelin captain Hugo Eckener (1868-1954) was her uncle. She studied music in Stuttgart and Munich, graduating in 1939 in Munich with the concert exam. She worked for ten years as a ballet pianist at the Württemberg State Theatre under John Cranko. For many more decades, she performed as a pianist and worked as a piano teacher. Until recently, she performed with her “young” and “old” pupils in retirement homes and homes for the disabled. Since November 2010, Mrs Gollbeck-Eckener lived in a retirement home in Rohrdorf/Bavaria. In honour of her 95th birthday, two years before her death, a concert was given there in 2011.
Throughout her life, she also gave concerts in retirement homes and homes for the disabled, alone or with her pupils.
The music books contain dedications from composers and castle guests as well as signatures from Julie and Jan von Wendelstadt.
