Bernhard Böttner

Bernhard Böttner (born February 13, 1924 in Schmalkalden ; † August 12, 2013 in Sommerhausen ) was a German concert pianist , conductor , festival director and piano teacher .

Career

Böttner grew up in Meiningen . There he became a private student of the composer Günter Raphael , during his ostracism in the Third Reich . He studied conducting in Leipzig with Hermann Abendroth and Johann Nepomuk David and piano with Sigfrid Grundis . For a while he was répétiteur in the dance department of Mary Wigman in Leipzig .

Kapellmeister engagements at the State Opera Katovice , in Meiningen and Weimar followed . Böttner made his solo debut in 1947 under Joseph Keilberth with the Dresden Staatskapelle . He has given concerts with conductors such as Franz Konwitschny , Dimitri Mitropoulos , Hans Rosbaud and Hermann Scherchen .

Böttner lived in Berlin until 1964, and since then in Sommerhausen and Prague . He has performed repeatedly with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra , the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra , the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and German state and radio symphony orchestras. Foreign trips led through Europe, including tours to Russia. He was a member of the piano line-up of the Berlin Philharmonic Octet and the Prague Dvořák Quartet .

In 1969, Böttner was appointed professor of piano and finally head of the music teacher’s seminar at the Meistersinger Conservatory in Nuremberg . He held these positions until his retirement and during this time he reorganized the subjects of music physiology and methodology of piano technique . Bernhard Böttner also headed the Institute for Pianistic Diagnostics in the Tonkünstler-Bezirksverband Mittelfranken e. V. (based in Nuremberg), which set itself the task of advising on individual piano technical problems. This included method-independent game-technical diagnoses, written reports, aptitude tests and a topic that Böttner repeatedly occupied, game damage therapy, which was carried out in collaboration with doctors and psychologists.

Services

After the Second World War, Böttner campaigned for works by composers who were ostracized in the Third Reich . These included works by Karl Amadeus Hartmann , Paul Hindemith , Arthur Honegger , Günter Raphael , Aram Chatschaturjan and Igor Stravinsky . Another focus he put on the performance of works by Russian and Slavic composers (including Pavel Bořkovec and Artur Malawski ).

Böttner played the representative international premiere of the concentration camp sonata April 27, 1945 by Karl Amadeus Hartmann at the 3rd World Music Festival in 1988 in Leningrad.

In 1964 Böttner initiated the Recital Sommerhausen / Marktbreit music festival (until 1982 as the German Soloist Festival ) under the patronage of Henryk Szeryng , Emil Gilels , Pierre Fournier and Maurizio Pollini .

As a researcher and pedagogue in the field of pianistic playing technique he developed the first physiologically secured universal touch theory ( Die Pianistische Universaltechnik ) as well as the Great Genealogy of Pianistics (an international family tree of teacher-student development, the development of piano construction, playing methods and concert music ).

Honors and miscellaneous

In 2005, Bernhard Böttner received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon for his life's work.

His artistic, educational and scientific estate has been in the Bernhard Böttner archive in Fürth since 2014 . Among them is his extensive correspondence with Günter Raphael , Mary Wigman , Hermann Abendroth , Arnold Schönberg , Karl Amadeus Hartmann , Aram Chatschaturjan , Dimitri Mitropoulos , Artur Malawski , Henryk Szeryng , Herbert von Karajan , Emil Gilels , Pierre Fournier , Alfred Brendel , Theodor W. Adorno and Vladimir Ashkenazy .

Works

• Bibliography on the methodology of piano technique . Sommerhausen 1985.
• The universal pianistic technique . Sommerhausen 1982.
• The universal pianistic technique. Publication excerpt II, course materials, basics and conception . 3. Edition. Sommerhausen 1995.
• The Great Genealogy of Pianistics . Sommerhausen 1997.
• Old and New Truths About Tone Formation on the Piano. Their physical and physiological foundations and the consequences for piano pedagogy that have been overdue for 50 years. A contribution to the didactics of universal technology . In: ZfMP (= magazine for music education). Gustav Bosse Verlag, Regensburg. 10th year, issue 29, March 1985, ISSN 0341-2830. Pages 45–69.
• Habituation of art movements. Prerequisite for ensuring optimal piano technique. In: practicing and making music . Schott Verlag, Mainz, Volume 2, Issue 5, October 1985. Pages 354-360.
• 9 theses on the evolution theory of universal technology based on a method-integrated definition and systematics of the types of touch and their consequences for modern piano pedagogy . In: Documentation 1982 for the EPTA Congress (= European Piano Teachers' Association), Saarbrücken, University of Music 1982.
• Fundamental flaws in current piano pedagogy in the technical area . In: practicing and making music . Schott Verlag Mainz, Volume 7, Issue 2, 1990. Pages 80–87.

literature

• Thomas Schinköth: Music - the end of all illusions? Günter Raphael in the Nazi state , von Bockel, Neumünster 1996.
• Raphael Woebs: The Political Theory in New Music. Karl Amadeus Hartmann and Hannah Arendt , Fink Verlag, Munich 2010.
• Raphael Woebs: " Carrying musical life into the countryside ". On the death of the pianist, festival director, educator and musicologist Bernhard Böttner , in: neue musikzeitung 11/13, p. 50.

Web links

• Bernhard Böttner Archive Fürth / Bay.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Schinköth: Music - the end of all illusions? Günter Raphael in the Nazi state, von Bockel, Neumünster 1996
2. ↑ Raphael Woebs: " Carrying music life into the countryside ". On the death of the pianist, festival director, educator and musicologist Bernhard Böttner , in: neue musikzeitung 11/13, p. 50.
3. ^ Sonata on the Holocaust Der Spiegel 24/1988
4. ↑ Cf. Raphael Woebs: The Political Theory in New Music. Karl Amadeus Hartmann and Hannah Arendt , Fink Verlag, Munich 2010.
5. ↑ See Kleinod versaut , in: Der Spiegel 25/1974
6. ↑ See Neuer Halt , in: Der Spiegel 31/1968
7. ↑ Press archive 2005. (PDF; 3.1 MB) Government of Lower Franconia - Bavaria, December 30, 2005, p. 196 , accessed on September 24, 2014 .  
8. ↑ Bernhard Böttner Archive, Fürth / Bay.