The unfinished symphony of my life
Ernst Viebig - The unfinished symphony of my life is an autobiographical novel by the composer and conductor Ernst Viebig . In it Viebig reports on his childhood and youth in Berlin in the home of famous and wealthy parents - his father was the publisher Friedrich Theodor Cohn , his mother the late naturalist writer Clara Viebig, who was well known at the time . This phase of life came to an end with the First World War , when Ernst volunteered for the military. He experiences the " Golden Twenties " and the change in Berlin on the eve of Adolf Hitler's " seizure of power " , the political effects of which ultimately lead to his migration to Brazil .
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The impairment of the relationship between parents and son is an important motif that runs through the entire depiction. Their values, which Ernst describes as "the bourgeois saturation of the Wilhelmine epoch ", are not compatible with his life plan from the start. Ernst, who will develop into a typical representative of the new attitude towards life of the 'Golden Twenties', does not accept the values of the parents from the early days .
After Clara Viebig's first literary successes , the family lived in wealthy circumstances until the end of the First World War. Many intellectual greats of the time frequented his parents' house, including Albert Einstein , whose violin playing Ernst was later allowed to accompany on the piano. The son is given a childhood with a private teacher, riding lessons, longer stays in sanatoriums to cure his bronchial disease and music lessons. However, this is no longer appreciated by him. He sees himself neglected by his parents' work - his mother only devotes herself entirely to him when he was sick. He also prefers to play with street children and refuses the contact that his parents want him to do.
This discrepancy continues into adolescence and adulthood. For Ernst, school is a time of drill. He used the beginning of the First World War to volunteer for the military. In this way he escapes his parents' home, but the longed-for freedom ultimately turns out to be deceptive: "I got caught in the gears of a gigantic machine, searched for freedom and found the most disgusting form of slavery, cadaver obedience." He returned from the war with no plans or prospects, but soon made the decision to study music and become a conductor or composer .
Ernst's interest in women arose early on. All sorts of escapades put the parents in fear and terror, so that when they start a relationship with a 'demimondane', they have their son forcibly abducted to a sanatorium. He sees himself as a romantic: "I always felt like a young Werther [...]. As often as I loved in my life: I always suffered like a beaten dog."
Ernst Viebig is one of those young people at this time who lead an excessive life, turn night into day and feel comfortable in underworld pubs and artist studios where ideological and political discussions are held. He frequented artistic circles and is proud when he dines in the same restaurant with Franz Werfel or Count Coudenhove-Kalergi . He brings through a large inheritance in a very short time before the money falls victim to inflation.
The musician career begins promisingly. Ernst marries the solo dancer of a ballet, but the marriage breaks up after a short time. After this disappointment he wrote his first opera ' Night of Souls '. He meets his second wife, with whom he will have two children. Initially, the parents did not approve of this connection with the former secretary, which was perceived as improper: "My mother rolled over in hysterical screams, cursed child and mother and son on top of that [...]" But soon the waves smoothed out and the parents supported children and Grandchildren again and again in all kinds of ways.
In the short term, the young father's life becomes more orderly. He begins to write articles for several music magazines and works as a production and recording manager. Here he finds more friends; who 'smoke together all night, write, gesticulate and solve the world's riddles'. He and his small family enjoy the idyll of the German Christmas festival. He describes this period as a relatively stable period of his life, followed by a wildly moving epoch and finally emigration.
The bad economic situation causes Ernst to lose his job. His second opera, ' Die Mora ', based on the plot of his mother's novel ' Absolvo te ', is broadcast on the radio but is not well known. In the vortex of political polarization, he takes the side of the Communist Party of Communism . In addition, an affair with a married woman throws Ernst off track in such a way that he goes to a mental hospital on his own in order to free himself from this passion. This woman will later denounce him as a communist, which ultimately leads to his departure from Germany.
Job prospects are for the " seizure " of the Nazis destroyed for Ernst Viebig. He tries to get his opera performed. However, Joseph Goebbels himself rejected this with the comment: "No - 'as a Jew' you are not authorized to administer German cultural property." This experience, as well as a cross-examination by the Gestapo, moved him to pursue the emigration that had already been planned several times. After meeting his parents for the last time in Bad Bertrich , Ernst Viebig set off for São Paulo with a heavy heart .
Ernst Viebig's biographical notes end with his departure. They are supplemented by notes from wife Irmgard Viebig and daughter Susanne Bial .
Late publication of the manuscript
Ernst Viebig wrote his memoirs in 1957. They came into the possession of Susanne Bial , who left them to the Clara Viebig Society . It was published by Rhein-Mosel-Verlag in 2012 in honor of the 60th anniversary of Clara Viebig's death .
Interpretative approaches
The motivation to write down his experiences was a life crisis. The death of Ernst Viebig's longtime partner plunged him into a deep depression . Through self-reflection as a writer, the writer sorted out unprocessed experiences and found new courage.
The narrative is structured chronologically, whereby the later emigration, which overshadows everything, is indicated more and more in the course of the narrative by self-reflective foresight and comments by the narrator. The plot spans from 1897, the birth of Ernst Viebig, to 1934, the year he left for Brazil. His memories are closely interwoven with the historical background of the Wilhelmine epoch, the Weimar Republic and its fall, as well as the establishment of the National Socialists in Germany, and make the history of this time vivid. Embedded in these key data is a family biography which, through the presentation of both grandparents - a Jewish line on the father's side and a Protestant line on the mother's side - goes back to Ernst Viebig's time.
Ernst Viebig connects historical and social events with his individual, mostly confrontational family history. He especially lets the reader participate in his vita intima , whereby the description of his escapades is partly characterized by a relentless openness.
The ambivalence with which Ernst Viebig depicts his parents is representative of a time of political and moral change in values. Of interest for literary research is Ernst's portrayal of his mother Clara Viebig, who was an advocate of female freedoms as a writer, whereas she did not always allow women to do so in her own life. Ernst Viebig describes the rejection of his second wife Irmgard in particular with incomprehension. The son cannot resolve this tension between poetry and reality in his mother's life throughout his life.
Volker Neuhaus compares Ernst Viebig with the "somewhat younger Klaus Mann ". Both lives are "borne in equal measure by the fame and solid prosperity of their parents, by their own eccentric ingenuity and by the cultural atmosphere of awakening within a freaky jeunesse dorée of the twenties [...]." For both lives, what Ernst Viebig, a passionate mountaineer, says aphorismically about the 'deeper spiritual content' of any mountain hiking: "Whoever has never been on top, will not know the depth."
literature
- Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, with a foreword by Volker Neuhaus. Rhein-Mosel-Verlag, Zell an der Mosel 2012, ISBN 978-3-89801-061-0 .
- the following supplements, lists and directories in the same volume:
- Notes from Ernst Viebig's wife, Irmgard Viebig;
- Notes of the daughter Susanne Bial "My father, the composer Ernst Viebig";
- biographical data;
- Compositions by Ernst Viebig and
- Personalities, friends and contemporaries in Ernst Viebig's life.
swell
- ↑ See Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, Zell / Mosel 2012, p. 9.
- ↑ Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, Zell / Mosel 2012, p. 26.
- ↑ Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, Zell / Mosel 2012, p. 54.
- ↑ Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, Zell / Mosel 2012, p. 42.
- ↑ Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, Zell / Mosel 2012, p. 90.
- ↑ Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, Zell / Mosel 2012, p. 151.
- ↑ Volker Neuhaus: Ernst Viebig - The tragedy of a life, in: Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, Zell / Mosel 2012, pp. 5–8, here: p. 7.
- ↑ Ernst Viebig: The unfinished symphony of my life. A famous mother's Jewish son remembers . Edited by Christel Aretz and Peter Kämmereit, Zell / Mosel 2012, p. 110.