Johann Valentin Hamm

Bavarian music director and composer (born December 11, 1811 in Winterhausen near Würzburg, Bavaria – died December 21, 1874 in Würzburg, Bavaria) Hamm studied music and started his career as a violin teacher in Würzburg in 1838. In 1842, he joined the Würzburg Theater Orchestra, which he later led. Between 1855 and 1871, he served as the director of the Kurorchester (spa orchestra) of Bad Kissingen, then a fashionable resort town that attracted guests from all over Europe. For the spa orchestra, Hamm wrote 86 lively dances, marches, and songs. The Russian Tsar Alexander II. was so enamoured with Hamm's marches that he tried to acquire several for his military bands in St. Petersburg. Hamm thanked him by composing three additional marches that he dedicated to the Tsar under the title "Erinnerungen an Kissingen" (Souvenirs from Kissingen).