Eduard Zuckmayer
Eduard Zuckmayer (born August 3, 1890 in Nackenheim ( Rheinhessen ), † July 2, 1972 in Ankara , Turkey) was a German music teacher, composer , conductor and pianist . He was the brother of the German writer Carl Zuckmayer .
Life and professional stations before emigration
Eduard Zuckmayer was the older son of the wealthy wine capsule manufacturer Carl Zuckmayer (1864–1947) and his wife Amalie (1869–1954), née Goldschmidt, in Nackenheim near Mainz in Rhineland-Hesse. The mother's parents had converted from Judaism to Protestantism, but Zuckmayer himself was brought up Catholic in the spirit of his father. From the age of six Eduard Zuckmayer received piano lessons; at the age of twelve he began to compose. After graduating from high school in 1908, he began studying law and music in Munich. In 1909 he moved to Berlin and, while studying, received private lessons in piano and composition from Robert Kahn (composer) and James Kwast . He also attended Fritz Steinbach's conducting school until 1914 and was a piano student of Lazzaro Uzielli at the Cologne Conservatory. In 1914 he obtained the concert qualification as a conductor and pianist and worked as a conductor at the Mainz Opera House until 1915.
From 1914 to 1918 the brothers Eduard and Carl took part in the First World War as volunteers. Eduard was seriously wounded and received the Iron Cross, first and second class. Zuckmayer referred to this award after 1933 in order to be able to continue his profession.
From 1919 to 1925 Eduard Zuckmayer lived as a pianist, conductor and music teacher in Frankfurt am Main and from 1923 to 1925 also directed a piano class at the Mainz Conservatory. Also in 1923 he was a co-founder of the Society for New Music Mainz / Wiesbaden:
“I soon realized that New Music must basically be preceded by the new society, the new people [...]. In these politically torn times, this only seemed possible to me by bringing up a new, young generation. "
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Eduard_zuckmayer_schule_am_meer_1931.png/220px-Eduard_zuckmayer_schule_am_meer_1931.png)
The quote refers to the turning point in Zuckmayer's life. He was enthusiastic about the appreciation of amateur music that came with the youth music movement , distanced himself from the classical music business and broke off the promising artistic career as a concert pianist. Instead, he followed Martin Luserke's call in 1925 as a music educator at the reform-pedagogical rural education home Schule am Meer on the East Frisian North Sea island of Juist . There, for example, Felicitas Kukuck and Jens Rohwer were among his students, and Kurt Sydow was a colleague . In this school, in which "sport, amateur play and music were important elements of the pedagogical direction and music education was understood as" bridging the gap between art and life ", Zuckmayer also met the wife of his colleague Walter Jockisch , Gisela Jockisch (1905–1985) , née Günther, know a journalist who later followed him to Turkey with her daughter Michele from their first marriage, where they married in 1947.
In the course of 1933 it became apparent that under the National Socialist rule the school by the sea would have no prospect of continuing as an autonomous rural education home. In 1934 the school disbanded under the pressure of conformity and anti-Semitism . Zuckmayer switched to the Odenwald School , but evidently also explored other possibilities. Documented is a failed application from him as a music teacher at the Quaker School Eerde , which was founded in April 1934 .
Zuckmayer stayed at the Odenwald School until 1936 . In August 1935 the Reichsmusikkammer (RMK) had excluded him because his mother was of Jewish origin. This was accompanied by an immediate and complete professional ban in the musical field. Zuckmayer had to reorient himself.
New home in Turkey
Exile in Ankara
Paul Hindemith , whom Zuckmayer knew from the 1920s, returned from his first stay in Turkey in 1935 and met with Zuckmayer in Heppenheim an der Bergstrasse and suggested that he work in Turkey. Zuckmayer accepted this proposal and emigrated to Turkey in April 1936. In Ankara, where a community of well-known German scientists and artists had gathered in exile , Zuckmayer first became a teacher at the music teacher’s seminar ( Musiki Muallim Mektebi ) and at the state conservatory ( Devlet Conservatuar ) on the recommendation of Paul Hindemith . He was director of the school orchestra and the madrigal choir and also deputy to Hindemith, who was in charge of reforming Turkish musical life.
In 1938 his future wife, Gisela Jockisch (1905–1985), née Günther, traveled with her daughter Michaela "Michele" because Zuckmayer could now assume a secure existence in Turkey. In the same year he was also appointed head of the music department at the Gazi Eğitim Enstitüsü Pedagogical College , from which today's Gazi University emerged .
“He was a very fine, very quiet man who never did anything spirited in any way, but - even if I'm very unmusical by nature - I know very well that if he sat down at the piano and played, then it went away gave him an atmosphere that was quite unique. "
Internment and a new beginning
On August 2, 1944, Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and asked all German nationals to leave Turkey. Those who could not or did not want to leave were interned, with a few exceptions. Eduard Zuckmayer had to spend the period from September 1944 to December 1945 as an intern in the inner Anatolian city of Kırşehir , where he actively participated in the cultural life of the German internees. They founded a choir led by Zuckmayer. Gerhard Ruben, the son of Walter Ruben , later reported:
“We had an awful lot of time, and of course Zuckmayer knew all of classical music very well. So we sang church music. There was also a Catholic pastor interned there, and a few nuns from Austria. They always held church services on Sundays. And there we actually sang a mass by the church musician Palestrina . In the middle of Turkey! "
After his internment was lifted and his return to Ankara, Zuckmayer resumed his previous activities at the State Conservatory in 1946. In 1950 his wife traveled back to Germany with Zuckmayer's adopted daughter Michele and from there to the USA. Zuckmayer stayed and became a formative designer of Turkish music education. In 1965, on his 75th birthday, an article dedicated to him said:
“There is no music teacher in Turkey who has not been trained by 'Profesör Sukmajer', and there is no music teacher in the country who was not taken care of musically and pedagogically. [..] In the remotest corner of Anatolia you know him, at least you know his name. You may not know the name of the minister responsible at the moment: but who Zuckmayer is, practically every teacher in the country knows. "
Until 1970 Zuckmayer was still active at the State Conservatory. After that, until his death on July 2, 1972, he taught privately and worked as a concert pianist and conductor and also as an advisor to the Turkish government. The synthesis of Turkish and contemporary Western music has been a particular concern of the teacher and musician Zuckmayer over the decades. He translated many German children's and school songs into Turkish, translated traditional Turkish folk tunes into polyphonic choral singing and translated the text of the Turkish national anthem İstiklâl Marşı into German.
literature
- Horst Widmann: Exile and educational aid. German-speaking academic emigration to Turkey after 1933. Bern, Frankfurt 1973. (p. 293, etc.)
- “I am now sound conductor in Ankara”, SWR2, broadcast on December 31, 2009 , DLF, broadcast on October 25, 2013
- Active Museum Association (ed.): Haymatloz. Exile in Turkey 1933–1945 , exhibition catalog, publisher like Hg., Berlin 2000, pp. 96–97
- Susanne Buchinger: "... and I thank God for being with the Turks!" Comments on the life and work of Eduard Zuckmayer (1890–1972) , hectographed manuscript of a lecture at the opening of the exhibition "Haymatloz" in the local museum in Nackenheim, 2012
- Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. A documentation collage , in: Monika Lehmann, Hermann Schnorbach (ed.): Enlightenment as a learning process. Festschrift for Hildegard Feidel-Mertz , dipa-Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, 1992, ISBN 3-7638-0186-3 , pp. 86-101
Documents
Letters from Eduard Zuckmayer are in the holdings of the Leipzig music publisher CF Peters in the Leipzig State Archives .
documentary
- Barbara Trottnow (Director): Eduard Zuckmayer - A musician in Turkey , Germany, 2015, 87 minutes. A trailer is available on YouTube .
Web links
- Phonostar, the composer Eduard Zuckmayer in Turkey , report on Deutschlandfunk from April 17, 2009
- University of Hamburg, Institute of Musicology: Biography Eduard Zuckmayer
- Pelin Kadercan, University of Rochester: Transnational Encounters in Music: Eduard Zuckmayer and the Modernization of Music Education in Turkey, 1924–72 (abridged version)
- Degree program in music education at Gazi University, Ankara (Turkish)
- They were called "haymatloz"
Individual evidence
- ↑ The following biographical data are based on three sources: a) Active Museum Association (ed.): Haymatloz. Exile in Turkey 1933–1945 , p. 96, b) University of Hamburg, Institute of Musicology: Biography Eduard Zuckmayer and c) Susanne Buchinger: "... and I thank God for being with the Turks!"
- ↑ quoted from: Association active museum (ed.): Haymatloz. Exile in Turkey 1933–1945 , p. 96
- ↑ Susanne Buchinger: "... and I thank God for being with the Turks!"
- ^ Carl Zuckmayer: Correspondence: Letters 1935-1977 . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2004. ISBN 978-3892446279 , p. 122.
- ^ Portrait of Eduard Zuckmayer in: Active Museum Association (ed.): Haymatloz. Pp. 96-97
- ^ Carl Zuckmayer: Correspondence: Letters 1935-1977 . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2004. ISBN 978-3892446279 , p. 122.
- ↑ Barbara Trottnow: Eduard Zuckmayer - A musician in Turkey . Documentary. On: YouTube, 2:41 min., Accessed July 15, 2017
- ↑ They were called "haymatloz"
- ↑ Quoted from: Active Museum Association (ed.): Haymatloz. Pp. 96-97
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Zuckmayer, Eduard |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German music teacher, composer and pianist |
DATE OF BIRTH | August 3, 1890 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Nackenheim , Hesse |
DATE OF DEATH | 2nd July 1972 |
Place of death | Ankara , Turkey |