Erich Donnerhack

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Erich Donnerhack around 1960

Erich Donnerhack with daughter Ingrid playing house music around 1950

Erich Herbert Donnerhack (born August 5, 1909 in Dresden , † March 12, 1990 in Leipzig ) was a German orchestra conductor and conductor of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra .

Life

Erich Donnerhack was born on August 5, 1909 in Dresden as the fourth child of Albin and Anna Donnerhack. His parents had an inn on the Elbe, "Uncle Tom's Hut". As a child, he first learned oboe for a year, then violin and piano. At the age of 15 he was accepted into the Dresden orchestral school and took his final exam there in 1929. As a substitute he sat in the Dresden Staatskapelle and saw Fritz Busch as a conductor and the then 12-year-old Yehudi Menuhin as a violin soloist.

Donnerhack got his first engagement in the Dresden Operetta Theater (Residenztheater) as concert master. There he met his future wife, the dancer Edith Uhlig. Two years later they went to the local theater in Altenburg, he as concertmaster and she as a solo dancer. During the theater holidays, which were not paid at the time, Erich Donnerhack gathered a few musicians around him and they drove to Garmisch-Partenkirchen or Mittenwald and played spa concerts there all summer. In 1939 he won a violin position in the Berlin Symphony Orchestra among 35 violinists . Edith Uhlig switched to the Berlin Metropoltheater as a dancer , where she stood on a stage with the young Johannes Heesters in his prime roles.

In 1940 the couple married and Erich Donnerhack was drafted into the military in the same year. After completing his military service, he took his violin from Berlin and played light music with other soldiers throughout the war and also then in captivity. In 1942 his daughter Ingrid was born. While in captivity in Marseille , he founded a nine-man orchestra, which he conducted as a solo violinist. A diary from this time with all the programs of this orchestra was saved and is in the possession of the Donnerhack family.

In 1946 he came back from captivity and accepted an offer from Leipzig to set up a radio entertainment orchestra. The early years were very difficult because the broadcasting rooms were bombed and the technology was inadequate. He led an 18-piece orchestra and played everything from classical to pop music for which there was still sheet music. Much has been copied by hand or newly composed. The composer Siegfried Bethmann was a close companion at this time. Artists like Heinz Quermann , Lutz Jahoda and Fred Frohberg began their careers in the concerts of the "Rundfunk-Unterhaltungs-Orchester Erich Donnerhack", which later became very popular on the radio as the "Central German Radio Entertainment Orchestra".

In 1957 Erich Donnerhack moved to Halle an der Saale , where he founded the Great Halle Entertainment Orchestra with 53 musicians. During this time he began to write the arrangements for the ensemble the size of a symphony orchestra himself. Hundreds of these instrumentations were played in concerts throughout the GDR . Some of these scores are in the archive of the Handel Theater in Halle.

In 1962 Donnerhack applied to the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR (VKM), which was granted in 1963. In February 1966 he resigned.

In 1970 Donnerhack retired. For a few years he continued to write arrangements and compositions for “his” orchestra, until old age and illness no longer allowed this concentrated work. He celebrated his 80th birthday in August 1989 with his family and old friends such as Heinz Quermann , Fred Frohberg and Lutz Jahoda . He also lived through the turning point .

Donnerhack died of lung cancer on March 12, 1990.

family

With his wife, Edith geb. Uhlig, he was married 50 years in the year of his death. After her career as a dancer, she ran the family household. At official events or large concerts, Edith was the grand dame of society. She died on March 11, 2004.

Erich and Edith Donnerhack had a daughter named Ingrid. She found access to music from an early age. At the age of five she began taking piano lessons with Carlernst Ortwein ("Conny Odd") and with the children's ballet at the Leipzig Opera. Your first ballet master was Tom Schilling . She finished ballet after eight years. She played the piano until the end of her studies. At the age of 11 she began to play the harp with Margarethe Kluvetasch and then studied this major at the Leipzig University of Music. Engagements as an orchestral harpist led Ingrid Donnerhack u. a. to Suhl, Eisleben, Stendal, Eisenach and Meiningen. After studying music dramaturgy, she went to the Schwerin and Rostock theaters. There she teaches children to play the harp at four music schools in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Donnerhack, Erich In: Herbert A. Frenzel , Hans Joachim Moser (ed.): Kürschner's biographical theater manual. Drama, opera, film, radio. Germany, Austria, Switzerland. De Gruyter, Berlin 1956, DNB 010075518 .