August Wenzinger

August Wenzinger (born November 14, 1905 in Basel , † December 25, 1996 in Metzerlen-Mariastein ) was a Swiss cellist , gambist , music teacher and conductor .

Live and act

August Wenzinger received his musical training at the Conservatory of the City of Basel . Here he studied cello playing with Paul Grümmer , later music theory with Philipp Jarnach at the Cologne University of Music and he took private cello lessons with Emanuel Feuermann in Berlin.

Then August Wenzinger got the position as first cellist in the Bremen City Orchestra (1929–1934), after which he worked in the same position at the Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft in Basel until 1970.

His growing interest was directed towards the revival of the baroque repertoire on original instruments. So in 1930 the so-called Kabeler Chamber Music was created in the private circle of the Hagen industrialist Hans Eberhard Hoesch (1891–1972) , but this was discontinued three years later due to political pressure. He often appeared with Gustav Scheck and Fritz Neumeyer in the Chamber Trio for Early Music , a formation that existed from 1935 to 1965 and often appeared at the "Kasseler Musiktage", in whose program Wenzinger was involved from 1933 to 1954.

The public breakthrough came years later. From 1954 to 1958 Wenzinger conducted baroque music with the Cappella Coloniensis of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne. With the Cologne Ensemble he achieved the introduction of historical performance practice on original instruments into the concert halls of Europe. In 1955 they recorded the opera L'Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi for the first time . With the “Cappella”, Wenzinger even received the first invitation from a West German orchestra of the post-war period to the Soviet Union. Between 1958 and 1966 he directed performances of baroque operas in Hanover.

From 1934 August Wenzinger was one of the first teachers at the newly founded Schola Cantorum Basiliensis . Under his leadership, the “Gambentrio of the Schola Cantorum” was created in 1968. He also worked as a visiting professor at Harvard University and Brandeis University .

In addition, Wenzinger obtained an edition of Johann Sebastian Bach's suites for violoncello solo adapted to the historical performance practice, which is based on baroque playing style , and published a teaching work with viol exercises (1935 and 1938) and the viol brooch from 1943.

Honors

In 1960, Wenzinger was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Basel .

Web links

• Literature by and about August Wenzinger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Christoph Ballmer: August Wenzinger. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Biography and sound sample in the German Broadcasting Archive

Individual evidence

1. ↑ German Broadcasting Archive , Booklet on Baroque Treasures ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.