page_title: Theodor Helm
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Theodor Helm / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: Death Index Record (Sterebuch) for Theodor Helm. (1 of 2)
context_page_description: Theodor Otto Helm was an Austrian music critic and writer.
  Theodor Otto Helm was a leading figure in Viennese musical life and a prominent music critic in Vienna for fifty years. While Helm specialized in criticism of the works of Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, Wilhelm Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, and Antonín Dvořák, he also wrote on younger composers including Béla Bartók and Gustav Mahler, and Arnold Schoenberg. Heavily involved in the Vienna music scene, including the Wiener Akademischer Wagner Verein, Helm counted both Bruckner and Brahms as close acquaintances.
context_section_description: Theodor Otto Helm was born April 9, 1843 in Vienna Austria. His parents Dr. Julius Helm (1813–1844) and Julie Freiin von Forstern had married a year earlier, in 1842. Theodor was their only child. Julius Helm died when Theodor was only one year old. Theodor's mother died when he was 15, leaving Theodor in the care of Julius's uncle, General-Auditor Friedrich Drahtschmidt v. Märentheim, who was friends of Robert and Clara Schumann.
  While in school Helm became friends with a classmate Richard Müller whose father was Dr. Karl Müller (1813–1868), Director of Erzherzoglichen Gallerie, later renamed the Albertina Museum, and a prominent music critic from "nobility". The elder Müller was largely responsible for introducing young Theodor to Vienna's musical events and salons. Upon Karl Müller's death, Helm replaced Müller as music critic for Neues Fremdenblatt. 
  Theodor Otto Helm married Irene Dorothea Müller (1844–1911) Karl Müller's daughter on June 1, 1869.
  In 1870 Theodor and Irene Helm had their first child Julius. Tragically Theodor's wife Irene completely lost her hearing in 1870. It isn't clear if this was a complication related to childbirth. As a very young boy Julius studied violin under Johannes Brahms, who suspected that Julius was a musical genius. Sadly, Julius died at the early age of five years and nine months. 
  In 1872 Theodor and Irene had a daughter Gabriela Mathilde Helm. An accomplished pianist, she lived until 1945.
  In 1875 Theodor and Irene Helm had a second son Theodor Ludwig Moritz Helm (1875–1963). Theodor Jr. attempted to emulate his father by publishing several critical essays on Anton Bruckner's music, but failing to follow his father's success while under the economic pressures of providing for his growing family, he later settled to work as a civil servant with the Postal Service.
  Theodor Otto Helm died of "old age" on December 25, 1920. He was buried on December 27, 1920 in the Zentralfriedhof cemetery in Vienna, the near the graves of his fellow critic Eduard Hanslick and the composers Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Goldmark, Wolf, Salieri and several Strausses.
caption: Death Index Record for Theodor Helm (1 of 2)http://data.matricula-online.eu/en/oesterreich/wien/03-landstrasse-st-rochus/03-38/?pg=63
exif: {}