Alfred Wittenberg

Alfred Wittenberg (born January 14, 1880 in Breslau ; † July 18, 1952 in Shanghai ) was a German violinist , pianist and university professor .

Life

Alfred Wittenberg was born into a Jewish family. As a child prodigy , the ten-year-old appeared in a concert with a violin concerto by Mendelssohn and a piano concerto by Chopin . He studied with Joseph Joachim at the Musikhochschule Berlin . In 1901 he received the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Prize (with a scholarship) for violin. He played in the Staatskapelle Berlin of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin.

As a violinist, Wittenberg was a member of piano trios with Frederic Lamond and Joseph Malkin , with Anton Hekking and Artur Schnabel (later Clarence Adler ) and with Heinrich Grünfeld and Moritz Mayer-Mahr . In 1921 John Fernström learned from him.

After Hitler came to power , Wittenberg lived in Dresden , where the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden organized numerous musical activities. Wittenberg founded a piano trio there with Walter Goldmann and Paul Blumfeld .

In 1939 Wittenberg succeeded in emigrating to Shanghai with his wife and mother-in-law . He got the opportunity to hold a music evening with two Jewish musicians, through which he became known and had students. In 1941, before the outbreak of the Pacific War , a student offered him a life in the United States with good job opportunities, a house and a car, but Wittenberg wanted to stay in Shanghai. After the Japanese occupation of Shanghai , he and his family had to move to very limited accommodation in the isolation zone for Jews. After the war he taught at the Shanghai branch of the Central Music Conservatory .

Wittenberg died of a heart attack after collapsing while playing the violin.

The director Chen Yifei portrayed the Jewish colony in Shanghai and especially Alfred Wittenberg in his documentary Escape to Shanghai (1999), in which other main characters were Wittenberg's pupil, the pianist Ming-Qiang Li and the Austrian violinist Heinz Grünberg .

literature

Yang Yiren: Deep friendship between Chinese and Jews . China Today 2007, No. 11, (accessed February 18, 2016).
阿尔弗雷德 · 卫登堡 (Alfred Wittenberg 1880 ～ 1952 年) (accessed on February 18, 2016).

Individual evidence

^ Scholarships from the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Foundation (1879-1934) (accessed on February 18, 2016).
^ Altenberg Trio : Piano Trios (accessed on February 18, 2016).
↑ La Musique sous surveillance: Le ghetto sans murs (accessed February 18, 2016).
^ Agata Schindler: The History of the Jewish Cultural Association Dresden 1933-1938 . Studia Judaica XIV. Cluj-Napoca 2006, pp. 349–366 (accessed on February 18, 2016).

personal data
SURNAME	Wittenberg, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German violinist, pianist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH	January 14, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH	July 18, 1952
Place of death	Shanghai

[1] Scholarships from the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Foundation (1879-1934) (accessed on February 18, 2016).

[2] Altenberg Trio : Piano Trios (accessed on February 18, 2016).

[3] La Musique sous surveillance: Le ghetto sans murs (accessed February 18, 2016).

[4] Agata Schindler: The History of the Jewish Cultural Association Dresden 1933-1938 . Studia Judaica XIV. Cluj-Napoca 2006, pp. 349–366 (accessed on February 18, 2016).