Walter Kraft

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Walter Kraft (right) receiving the Schleswig-Holstein Art Prize (1957)

Walter Wilhelm Johann Kraft (born June 9, 1905 in Cologne , † May 9, 1977 in Amsterdam ) was a German organist and composer .

education

Walter Kraft studied piano and organ at the Vogt Conservatory in Hamburg and composition with Paul Hindemith at the Berlin Academy of Music, today's Berlin University of the Arts .

Life

The Marienkirche in Lübeck

From 1924 to 1929 Kraft was organist first at the Markuskirche in Hamburg and then at the Lutherkirche in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld . On April 23, 1929, from a group of 46 applicants, he was appointed organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck . He took up this post on August 1, 1929 and until 1972 became one of the most influential musical personalities in Lübeck's musical life in the 20th century . Shaped by the organ movement , but still committed to his very own style, he was an organist, improviser and educator known far beyond Lübeck . In 1926 he revived the tradition of Lübeck evening music , which had been interrupted since 1810 by Franz Tunder and Dietrich Buxtehude , first with an evening of Bach organ music, then annually with mixed choir and organ programs. After the Marienkirche was badly damaged in a bomb attack in 1942 and its organs destroyed, Kraft evaded the undestroyed Katharinenkirche for a few years and also worked as an organist in the Church of St. Nikolai in Flensburg in 1945 . During the reconstruction of St. Marien, he took care of the new construction of the dance of death organ and had the largest organ in the world with a mechanical action mechanism built as the Great Organ . From 1947 to 1972 he was in charge of the organ master class at the Musikhochschule Freiburg im Breisgau and from 1950 to 1955 he was artistic director of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Academy and the North German Organ School in Lübeck. After Kraft had retired from the post of Marian organist, he evidently planned to compose an opera, but such a work was never completed. In the morning hours of May 9, 1977, Walter Kraft and the Möllner flautist Maren Lorenz as well as 31 other people were killed in a hotel fire in Amsterdam.

plant

As a composer, Kraft left behind a large number of mainly church music works. His best-known compositions are the Toccata of the Dance of Death and the Lübeck Dance of Death , a new form of evening music from 1954, Communio Sanctorum and a Te Deum , which he dedicated to the Lübeck Knabenkantorei .

At the audio library in the music department of the Lübeck city ​​library there is the possibility of listening to unpublished recordings by Walter Kraft on the dance organ in St. Marien, which was destroyed in the air raid on Lübeck in 1942 .

Discography

  • Johann Sebastian Bach - The entire organ work played by Walter Kraft on various historical organs in Europe. Published by FSM VOX: 18 LPs.
  • Historical recordings "Walter Kraft" . Works by Bruhns , Buxtehude and own compositions. Publication by the Lübeck City Library. Third row, volume 8: Sound carriers.
  • The great organ in St. Marien zu Lübeck. Works by Bach, Buxtehude, Palafuti, Frescobaldi and Glasunow as well as a detailed sound demonstration of the organ. Musikverlag zum Pelikan, PSR 40544, approx. 1970
  • Buxtehude. Complete Organ Works VOX CD6X 3616 (6 CDs, recorded 1957)

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Wille: Walter Kraft . In: Der Wagen 1972, p. 166 ff.
  • Juliane Twardon: Walter Kraft - catalog raisonné . Lübeck 1997.
  • Arndt Schnoor: Walter Kraft (1905–1977) - a Lübeck visionary. Beginning and redesign of Lübeck as a city of church music. In: Der Wagen 2006, ISBN 978-3-87302-110-5 , pp. 163-173.
  • Jörg Fligge : Lübeck schools in the "Third Reich": a study on the education system during the Nazi era in the context of developments in the Reich area , Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2014, p. 980 ( Biographical Notes ).
  • Svea Regine Feldhoff: Kraft, Walter In: New Lübecker CVs (Ed. Alken Bruns) Neumünster 2009, pp. 351–356.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Digitized version of the autograph score, Lübeck City Library
predecessor Office successor
Karl Lichtwark Organist at St. Marien zu Lübeck
1929–1973 		Ernst-Erich Stender
personal data
SURNAME Kraft, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kraft, Walter Wilhelm Johann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German organist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1977
Place of death Amsterdam