Andreas Porfetye

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Andreas Porfetye (born July 6, 1927 in Zădărlac ( German  Saderlach ) , Kingdom of Romania ; † August 8, 2011 in Düsseldorf ) was a Romanian-German composer , pedagogue and cathedral music director .

life and work

Andreas Porfetye graduated from elementary school in Saderlach. From 1941 to 1944, the Banat Swabian attended the Banatia Teachers' Training College in Timișoara , then the Evangelical Church Seminary in Sibiu until 1946 . Between 1948 and 1954 Porfetye studied at the Bucharest University of Music with George Breazul (theory, Solfeggien), Paul Constantinescu (harmony), Leon Klepper (counterpoint, composition), Theodor Rogalski (orchestration), Constantin Bugeanu and Zeno Vancea (music history), Sabin Drăgoi and Tiberiu Alexandru (ethnomusicology). He then worked until 1969 as editor of the magazine of the Romanian composers' association Muzica . During this time he published numerous articles in Romanian and German publications in the country, including two major works on Paul Hindemith and Tudor Ciortea in 1964 .

Between 1963 and 1977 he worked as the cathedral music director at St. Joseph's Cathedral in the Archdiocese of Bucharest . His performances during this period included passions and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Handel , masses by Ludwig van Beethoven , Charles Gounod and Franz Schubert , as well as the Te Deum by Anton Bruckner and the German Requiem by Johannes Brahms . Porfetye also directed the cathedral choir, which was accompanied by the priest and organist Josef Gerstenengst and from 1974 to 1978 by the then organ student Franz Metz . Porfetye had guest appearances in the Banat (1973) and in Catholic churches of the Bucharest archdiocese with the choir, which consists mainly of Romanian-German parishioners. Between 1969 and 1975 he was also a lecturer in harmony , counterpoint and orchestration at the National Music University in Bucharest . After his application to emigrate to the Federal Republic of Germany , he was released there and the performance of his works in the Socialist Republic of Romania was banned.

After his resettlement he worked as a teacher for theory, harmony, counterpoint and piano at the Clara Schumann Music School in Düsseldorf. Here he founded the Collegium musicum Transsylvania in 1979 , with which he performed works by German composers from Transylvania and the Banat . In 1981 he got a teaching position for composition at the Musikhochschule Mannheim-Heidelberg .

Porfetye worked hard to find new organ music. After the organist Helmut Plattner founded the Bucharest organ class at the Musikhochschule, several works were created, such as the Passacaglia and Fuge (1955), Sonata I and II (1960/1967), and the Fantasia super BACH et Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae (1968 ). In 1977 he created his 16 chorale changes for the organ based on melodies from Gregorian chant and German chorals. His sacred works include the masses Missa Solemnis (1975), Missa Brevis (1979), as well as three sacred songs with instrumental accompaniment and the Ave Maria . At the end of the 1960s he was busy editing works by the Transylvanian composer and organist Daniel Croner . He has also published works by other Transylvanian composers such as Johann Sartorius , Martin Fay and Martin Polder . In 1971 his choir collection of Romanian-German composers “German songs from the Banat, Transylvania and the Sathmarer Land” appeared, for which he was able to win many composers, music teachers and choir directors. Some of his almost one hundred compositions were published by the Romanian Composers' Association , others by Breitkopf & Härtel .

Andreas Porfetye was one of the preparers of the working group Southeast , a group of Transylvanian and Banat musicians, which later became the Society for German Music Culture in Southeastern Europe eV, Munich . At the first meeting in 1984 he was elected to the board.

Awards

Andreas Porfetye received the George Enescu Prize of the Romanian Academy in 1968 , a state cultural medal in 1969, and the Prize of the Romanian Composers Association in 1971 and 1974 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Published in three volumes by Breitkopf & Härtel Verlag, Wiesbaden
personal data
SURNAME Porfetye, Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian-German composer, teacher and cathedral music director
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Zădăreni , Kingdom of Romania
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 2011
Place of death Dusseldorf , Germany