Dirk Lüken

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Dirk Lüken (born November 1, 1932 in Emden ; † January 1, 2020 ) was a German composer , organist , church musician , poet and writer .

Live and act

Lüken was the son of the painter Alfred (Ulfert) Lüken (1895–1967) and Ella Lüken, b. Bumblebee. Dirk Lüken began taking piano lessons at the age of 6. After the family had moved to Jever during the Second World War , he attended elementary and secondary school there and switched to grammar school in 1942, where he graduated from high school in 1954. He then completed a teaching degree for elementary and secondary school at the Oldenburg University of Education, which he completed in 1957, with the aim of combining work as a teacher and organist. Between the age of 13 and 15 he wrote his first compositions. In addition to piano lessons, he was trained to play the organ and he often represented the full-time organists in the church. In 1956 he passed the C examination for church musicians in the St. Petri Cathedral in Bremen. Its examiner was the Bremen organist and composer Volker Gwinner . On Gwinner's recommendation, after completing his degree, Lüken became an organist in the church and a teacher at the elementary and secondary school in Blexen near Nordenham and married Ursula Elgeti there. The marriage has two children.

In 1963 he became organist at the Aegidius Church in Berne (Wesermarsch district) and in the same year founded the series of evening music in Bern. Traditional works as well as own compositions were performed here and the concerts soon enjoyed great popularity in the region. Since 1964 he has conducted ten to eleven Bern evening music annually, each including his own compositions. In 1992 the concert series had to pause in the second half of the year, because Lüken suffered a stroke with hemiplegia on the left, which prompted him to write some harpsichord works for the left hand to regain mobility. In 2000, on the initiative of Björn Thümler , Lower Saxony's Minister for Science and Culture, the Evangelical Lutheran Church Community of Berne purchased an organ positive, the Lüken not only the performance of special works by Georg Friedrich Handel , but also suitable works from their own composition pool allowed.

When Lüken left the cantor's office on April 13, 2014 at the age of 82, he could look back on 510 concerts by the Berner Abendmusiken . By then he had written over 810 compositions, both sacred and secular, as well as 150 chorals based on songs in the Evangelical Hymnbook for the Bernese Kantorei, which he founded and directed to the end. In addition to his work as a church musician, Lüken also taught at the primary and secondary school in Berne.

From 1963 Dirk Lüken lived with his wife in the Bernese cantor house next to the Sankt Aegidius church. Here he also kept his scores and written texts.

Church music

Between 1963 and 2014, Lüken was in charge of all church services in the Evangelical Lutheran parish of Berne, including the casualia as organist, cantor and head of the Bernese choir. Together with the Berner Abendmusiken and additional performances by the Kantorei, the number of musical events he directed added up to well over 1,500. From the beginning, Lüken relied not only on playing the organ and harpsichord. In particular, when performing his own works, he involved professional musicians in addition to ambitious amateurs. Lüken received great support from the Oldenburg composer and pianist Christoph J. Keller and the composer Manfred Klinkebiel , who also worked in Oldenburg and who is one of the most important church musicians and church music composers in Northern Germany.

Compositions

Lüken's compositional oeuvre comprises 813 works and was published in 2018 in the book Die eine haben haben noch . There are also 150 choral movements composed by Lüken on melodies from the Evangelical hymn book. It includes ecclesiastical and secular compositions, orchestral and chamber music works as well as choral works and songs:

  • Orchestral works
  • Chamber music with and without keyboard instruments
  • Works for chamber ensemble according to old masters
  • Piano works and harpsichord works
  • Organ works
  • Cantatas and sacred concerts
  • Choral works a cappella
  • Songs for voice and piano
  • Berner Kantorei-Buch (choral movements)

Lüken's compositional style is characterized by counterpoint. His role models are Bach and other great masters. Quote: “Any, only decorative phrases have no place in it [= in my music].” “I understand everything banal. I am anti-banal myself, "says Lüken about himself and admits:" This is pretty strict music that I write. "

Performances

Lüken's works were mainly performed in the St. Aegidius Church in Berne and the Church of St. Cyprian and Cornelius (Ganderkesee) .

In 2005 the Edewechter Kunstfreunde eV performed a concert with Lüken himself on the harpsichord in the Martin Luther Church in Edewecht-Süddorf, which was later looked after by the Jerusalem provost Uwe Gränke. On June 10, 2012, Lüken's third string quartet was premiered 38 years after its creation in the "Konzertkirche Warfleth", St. Mary's Church . The performers were the musicians of the Skiron Quartet, which belongs to the Oldenburg State Orchestra.

Texts

In 2018, Lüken submitted seven short poems under the title Ataraxia to the tender for an anthology of the First Bern Book Weeks. The poems with the programmatic title for Lüken - ataraxia denotes peace of mind, imperturbability and serenity - were accepted and published. Around three hundred of his poems were published in 2018 in the book The One Saying Yet . Lüken devoted himself to his “search for the melody of life” (quotation from Christoph J. Keller) all the major philosophical currents from antiquity to the present day and proved to be an observer of nature and everyday life. His literary work also includes essays, tracts, notes and letters.

Honors

Lüken was awarded the landscape medal by the " Oldenburg landscape " as initiator, organizer and performer of the concert series "Berner Abendmusiken" for "outstanding services to culture in the state of Oldenburg", which was awarded to him on July 2, 2011 by the member of the state parliament Björn Thümler .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NWZ online from January 4, 2020: Obituary: Bern organist Dirk Lüken has died, by Friederike Liebscher , accessed on January 4, 2020
  2. ^ Heiko Jörn: Alfred (Ulfert) Lüken. (PDF) In: Osfriesische Landschaft. Retrieved February 5, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Reinhard Rakow: Biographical Notes - Dirk Lüken . In: Reinhard Rakow (ed.): Some say still. Poems and compositions . Geest Verlag, Vechta 2018, ISBN 978-3-86685-696-7 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e Georg Jauken: "A life for music". In: Weser courier . Retrieved February 5, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Fried-Michael Carl: "50 Years of Organist at Bern Church". In: NWZ Online. Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
  6. ↑ to hear works by Dirk Lüken. In: NWZ Online. Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
  7. ^ Portrait of the composer Dirk Lüken. In: NWZ Online. Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
  8. ↑ EB: The first Bern Book Weeks begin at the end of October. In: NWZ Online. Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
  9. ^ Christian Pfeiff: High-level honor for Dirk Lüken. In: Weserkurier. Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Lüken, Dirk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, organist, church musician, poet and writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Emden
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 2020