Erich Bergel

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Erich Bergel (born June 1, 1930 in Rosenau near Kronstadt , Romania ; † May 3, 1998 in Ruhpolding ) was a German-speaking conductor and musicologist of Transylvanian-Saxon origin.

Life

Erich Bergel was born as the second son of the married couple Katharina Bergel, née Truetsch (1904 to 2002) and Erich Bergel (1899 to 1971), who had been married since 1924. His siblings were Hans (* 1925), Hildegard (1927 to 2007) and Ortwin (1937 to 1952). The father was a teacher, music teacher and district school councilor and was regularly transferred, so that Erich moved from Rosenau to Reghin in 1936 , to Kronstadt in 1939 and to Sibiu in 1944 , together with the family. Before moving to Sibiu he attended public schools and also received music lessons on several musical instruments. In 1944 his father was imprisoned, the family lost their fortune and his brother Hans went into hiding so as not to be deported to the Soviet Union . Erich was unable to continue attending grammar school and had to help his mother and older sister to support the Rump family.

From 1946 Erich Bergel attended the pedagogical high school in Schäßburg . In 1950 he began studying music in Cluj at the Conservatory of Cluj . During his studies, Bergel successfully performed sacred works by Handel and Haydn as a conductor with a student choir . He then had to break off his studies because of the spread of religious mysticism with the help of music , which was unworthy of a budding socialist conductor . He was able to make up for his degree in July 1958. At the end of 1958 he applied for the position of conductor of the Klausenburger Philharmonie and prevailed against his competitors. Already in the first months he had brilliant successes. The student audience in particular was enthusiastic about his work. After less than half a year as a conductor, Bergel was arrested on April 13, 1959 and sentenced to seven years of forced labor. In the autumn of 1962 he was released due to a general amnesty for political prisoners, he went back to Cluj and took a position as a substitute trumpeter in the Philharmonic Orchestra. In the late summer of 1966, the guest conductor Fritz Mahler was to conduct the orchestra. When he suffered a heart attack, Erich Bergel stepped in for him. From October 1, 1966 he was officially reinstated as conductor. The regular income then enabled him to marry.

Towards the end of 1968 Bergel was invited by Herbert von Karajan as a guest conductor to the Berliner Philharmoniker in West Berlin, in January 1970 he conducted in Baden-Baden and in May 1970 again in Berlin. At the end of 1971 it became clear to Erich Bergel that the shading from the Securitate was becoming more and more intense, telephone calls were being interrupted, and more and more friends were warning him of intrigues. On December 23, 1971, during a concert in the Athenaeum of Bukuresti, he spontaneously decided to leave Romania. After he had conducted the concert to the end, he went straight to his car and drove through Transylvania across wintry Romania, before traveling to Hungary via the border town of Curtici . His international service pass made it possible to cross the border without the otherwise necessary lengthy applications.

From 1971 to 1974 Bergel was chief conductor of the Northwest German Philharmonic in Herford . From 1972 he led internationally important orchestras as a guest conductor, which led him to Brussels, Philadelphia, Strasbourg, Paris, Auckland, Los Angeles, Boston, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna and Cape Town, among others. In addition, from 1979 he taught orchestral conducting and education as a full professor at the University of the Arts in West Berlin . In 1989 he became chief conductor for life of the Budapest Philharmonic . Erich Bergel was married three times.

At the end of 1995 he was diagnosed with a malignant bone tumor in an advanced stage from his doctor . Before his death, Erich Bergel instructed that his body be cremated and that the urn be kept in an unknown location.

The writer Hans Bergel is a brother of Erich Bergel.

The musician

Bergel was a flautist with the Sibiu Philharmonic at the age of eighteen . From the mid-1960s he appeared as a conductor. He became chief conductor of the Cluj Philharmonic and permanent guest conductor of the Bucharest Philharmonic and the Radio Symphony Orchestra. On his sixtieth birthday in Romania, only a few months after the uprising in December 1989, on June 1, 1990, he conducted the Klausenburger Symphoniker in a memorial concert in honor of the victims of the popular uprising.

Awards

  • 1988 - The Haifa Symphony Orchestra plants 18 oak trees in his honor in the Jerusalem Forrest
  • April 3, 1993 - Honorary Doctorate from the Cluj Conservatory

Works

  • Erich Bergel: Johann Sebastian Bach, the art of the fugue: its spiritual basis under the sign of thematic bipolarity . Brockhaus Musikverlag, Bonn 1980, ISBN 3-922173-00-4 (227 pages, graphic representations, notes, bibliography pages 218-224).
  • Erich Bergel: Bach's last fugue . Brockhaus Musikverlag, Bonn 1985, ISBN 3-922173-03-9 (278 pages, sheet music).

literature

  • Hans Bergel : Erich Bergel A musician's life . In: Music history studies . tape 9 . Gehann-Musik-Verlag, Kludenbach 2006, ISBN 3-927293-29-6 (144 pages, illustrations, sheet music).
  • Gheorghe Mușat: Lumini și umbre. Din nou despre Erich Bergel. Cu documente preluate din arhiva CNSAS. Ediție revizuită și adăugită, Editura Ecou Transilvan, Cluj-Napoca 2014.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Renate Windisch-Middendorf: The man without a fatherland: Hans Bergel - life and work . In: Thede Kahl and Larisa Schippel (eds.): Forum: Romania . tape 5 . Frank & Timme, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86596-275-1 . Page 21
  2. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musicians' Life, 2006, page 9
  3. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musicians' Life, 2006, page 13
  4. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musicians' Life, 2006, page 17
  5. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musikleben, 2006, p. 22
  6. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musician Life, 2006, page 40
  7. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musician Life, 2006, p. 42f
  8. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musician Life, 2006, page 44
  9. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musikleben, 2006, page 48
  10. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musicians' Life, 2006, page 52
  11. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musicians' Life, 2006, page 56
  12. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musician Life, 2006, page 58
  13. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musician Life, 2006, pp. 60ff
  14. ↑ The chief conductors of the Northwest German Philharmonic Orchestra since 1950 ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nwd-philharmonie.de
  15. ^ Website of the Kronstädter Forum ( Memento of the original from August 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / forumkronstadt.ro
  16. ^ A b Hans Bergel, Musicians' Life, 2006, page 82
  17. ↑ Hans Bergel, Musician Life, 2006, page 81
  18. ^ Hans Bergel, Musicians' Life, 2006, p. 100
  19. ^ A b Hans Bergel, Musician Life, 2006, page 80

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bergel, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Râșnov , Romania
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1998
Place of death Ruhpolding