Bernd Bergel

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Bernd Bergel (born November 24, 1909 in Hohensalza ; died March 2, 1967 in Tel Aviv ; pseudonym: Dov Bargil ) was an Israeli composer of German origin.

Life

He was born in 1909 as the son of Salo Bergel and Elfride Gronemann (sister of the writer Sammy Gronemann ) in the then Prussian Hohensalza near Posen. He had two sisters: Jenny and Margarete Bergel. When her father, a doctor and scientist, received a professorship in Berlin in 1913, the family moved there. Bernd Bergel learned to play the violin and piano from an early age and began to compose. After graduating from high school in 1924, he studied composition and conducting at the State University of Music in Berlin from 1926 to 1931. a. with Walter Gmeindl and Julius Prüwer . Paul Hindemith was one of his teachers at the “Rundfunk-Versuchsstelle”, which was founded by the radio and affiliated with the university . 1931–1933 he studied composition in Arnold Schönberg's master class at the Prussian Academy of the Arts. During this time his Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic under Helmut Koch.

At the beginning of the 1930s, Bergel belonged to the circle around Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler . On April 1, 1933, the day of the first official boycott of Jewish shops, he fled to Paris. However, since he was unable to gain a foothold in the French capital, he returned to his parents in Berlin a year later. Here the Schönberg student Walter Gronostay succeeded in arranging lucrative compositions for radio and film music for him. Gronostay submitted Bergel's commissioned work under his own name. For example, Bergel composed the music for the films Lady Windermeres Fächer , The Last Four of Santa Cruz and Savoy Hotel 217 , which were officially considered compositions by Walter Gronostay. In this way it even came about that film music from the pen of the Jewish composer Bernd Bergel was used for a Nazi propaganda film.

After Gronostay's untimely death on October 10, 1937, Bergel found himself robbed of his livelihood in Germany and emigrated to Palestine, which was still a British mandate at the time. There he worked as a composer, pianist and conductor. He also worked on a philosophical book for almost thirty years. It was published in Tel Aviv in 1966 under the title On Illness and Recovery of Beings, or The Second Fall: Draft of a Hypothesis and its Dialectical Development on the Metaphysical Foundations of World Events . He dedicated this "confession of a Jewish musician in the age of earthly atomic nucleus splits" (subtitle) to "the idiots, screwed up, who have not been able to cope with their human life, who do not want to or cannot participate in what is being done by people on earth today" - and he added, "Perhaps they are the avant-garde of a future humanity."

Bergel's main compositional work is his two-act opera Jakobs Traum , whose free-tonal and expressive tonal language shows the influence of Schönberg. In addition to atonal art music, Bergel also wrote folkloric “music for use”, humorous works such as the serenade for grandmothers and string orchestras and effective concert music of a lighter character, including a divertimento for small orchestras that is popular with orchestras .

Works (selection)

Operas

  • Prince Nusskracher based on the fairy tale The Root Princess (1921)
  • The Golden Goose (1940)
  • Jacob's Dream (1958-62)

Orchestral works

  • Concerto for three pianos (1928)
  • Concerto for trombone and orchestra (1932)
  • Variations for orchestra (1951)
  • Divertimento for small orchestra (1957)
  • Two Movements for Strings (1963)
  • Overture joyeuse
  • Prelude for Youth Orchestra
  • Suite from Jacob's dream
  • Serenade for grandmothers and string orchestra

Chamber music

  • String quartet "Jacob's Dream" (1924)

Vocal works

  • Man's Prayer from 2100 for baritone, string trio, two pianos and organ (1954)
  • From my mother's songs , cantata for mezzo-soprano and large orchestra (1966)
  • Songs based on Yemeni melodies
  • Five oriental songs

Film music under the pseudonym Walter Gronostay

literature

  • Habakuk Traber, Elmar Weingarten (ed.): Displaced music. Berlin composer in exile . Argon-Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87024-118-7 , p. 217.
  • Peter Gradenwitz : Arnold Schönberg and his master students. Berlin 1925–1933 . Zsolnay, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-552-04899-5 , pp. 328-340.
  • Bergel, Bernd , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 84

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Sophie Fetthauer: Bernd Bergel. In: Lexicon of persecuted musicians from the Nazi era. Claudia Maurer Zenck, Peter Petersen, 2010 .;
  2. ^ H. Traber and E. Weingarten (eds.): Verdrängte Musik , Berlin 1987, p. 217.
  3. ↑ Peter Gradenwitz: Arnold Schönberg und seine Meisterschüler , Vienna 1998, p. 335.
  4. ↑ Peter Gradenwitz: Arnold Schönberg and his master students , p. 328 u. 337; and: The National Library of Israel (online catalog).
personal data
SURNAME Bergel, Bernd
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bargil, Dov (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli composer
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Hohensalza
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1967
Place of death Tel Aviv