Ernest Sauter

Ernest Sauter (born July 9, 1928 in Munich ; † December 8, 2013 there ) was a German composer .

Life

After early childhood in Munich, he moved to Leipzig in 1935. During this time, the right-wing conservative family only conveyed the music of the Viennese classical period and the German romantic period up to Richard Wagner and avoided any influence from contemporary music. The composer Felix Petyrek , in whose house the adolescent took piano lessons, gave his first impressions of newer music . Attending the Thomas School (Bach care) sensitized his hearing ability. At the end of the war while fleeing to the hometown, almost all first attempts to write were lost or destroyed. Saitenspiel was saved in hand luggage .

In 1947 after graduating from high school, Sauter began studying piano in Munich at the Academy of Music, which he had to abandon in 1949 due to financial difficulties. In connection with private studies with his previous piano teacher Prof. Maria Landes-Hindemith, he received a new impetus to compose from her husband Rudolf Hindemith - albeit in an insufficiently progressive direction - whose criticism of the “Musica Viva” ( Karl Amadeus Hartmann ) finally led to a rift.

At the end of the 1950s, Sauter's encounter with the art form ballet through guest performances by the Berlin Ballet and American companies was the reason to join the newly founded “ Junge Ballett Compagnie ” (JBC, Deutsches Ballett-Theater, Bonn); As a result, commissioned works such as arrangements ( It was a delicious time , Bayernhalle, BR Munich), instrumentations (Bizet, Jeux d'enfants) predominated. He wrote Blue Jeans as the first ballet for the JBC (TV recording by SR ). The dissolution of the JBC subsequently caused another material and psychological crisis; Unpublished works were destroyed by him due to self-criticism.

In 1965, Sauter was commissioned to compose a new ballet ( finale ) through Yvonne Georgi , head of ballet at the Hanover Opera House . Despite the successful performance, Georgi's sudden departure from university and theater service prevented further deepening and bonding with this new sphere of activity. In 1976, within a series of lectures, realization of a composition in collaboration between sound engineer and composer (in the recording studio of the State University for Music and Theater, Hanover), based on the mirror story by Ilse Aichinger, a scenic music in a four-channel system ("remontage") was created 1977 was premiered on the occasion of the New Music Days in Hanover. 1978 followed as Requiem for a dancer by Germinal Casado a production of this tape music for dancers at the city's National Theater, which has become a long-lasting success.

Concerns about being classified as a “new man in ballet” and the desire to maintain his own independence, perhaps also the longing to “be somewhere else”, were the reasons for the composer's decision to move to the south of France. Thanks to the understanding and commitment of some friends, especially GMD George Alexander Albrecht in Hanover, it became possible to work in the solitude and tranquility of Provence without losing contact with the outside world. The full-length ballet Till Eulenspiegel based on de Coster's novel La Légende d'Ulenspiegle (again commissioned by the Lower Saxony State Opera in Hanover) was created here as the first major work in 1983/84 . In 1986 Sauter chose the village of Suzette in the Dentelles - near Orange and Avignon - as his new residence. Here he wrote his first piano concerto ( Concert Russe ), dedicated to Gerhard Oppitz , which was successfully premiered by the dedicatee on the occasion of the Tchaikovsky year in 1993 in Hanover.

The desire to create one's own sphere of activity in the new adopted home became the driving force behind organizing concerts for smaller chamber music ensembles every summer in the small mountain church of Suzette under excellent acoustic conditions: Sauter founded the MUSIQUE D'ÉTÉ À festival SUZETTE with the aim of offering an interested public not only works of the classical but also by contemporary composers (Penderecki, Ligeti, Schnittke etc.). After several years of development work, the composer also had the opportunity to write his own works for this framework and have them performed by outstanding interpreters, such as Verrà La Morte , the soprano Christina Ascher and the Szymanowski Quartet, or the three string trios dedicated to the Dedicated to German string trio.

Works (selection)

Compositions

1945 String play, 6 small choral movements based on Japanese poetry (transmission by Manfred Hausmann)
1960 Blue Jeans Story, ballet for the Junge Ballett-Compagnie, TV recording by Saarland Radio
1963 Finale, ballet
1976 reassembly, electro-acoustic tape music, composition commission from the Staatl. University of Music and Theater, Hanover
1981 Three studies based on the 51 exercises by Brahms for two pianos
1982 Métrages pour flûte, harpe et percussion, music for an abstract film by Kurt Kranz
1984 Till Eulenspiegel, full-length ballet, commissioned by the Lower Saxony State Theater, Hanover
1988 Essai sur l'accord prométhéen pour alto seul et trio à cordes
1991 Concert Russe, concert for piano and large orchestra, dedicated to Gerhard Oppitz, commissioned by the Lower Saxony State Orchestra, Hannov er
1997 Verrà la morte, music for mezzo-soprano and string quartet based on a text by Cesare Pavese
1999 string trio
2000 Toccata sur le nom BACH for piano
2000 Essai sur l'accord prométhéen pour alto seul et orchester à cordes (revised orchestral version of the quartet version from 1988)
2001 Ballade pour violon, alto et violoncelle
2005 Musique Romantique pour violoncelle seul et trio à cordes (à la mémoire d'Arenski)
2007 3me Trio pour violon, alto et violoncelle

All published compositions by Ernest Sauter are in the German Composers Archive .

Literary works

1984 Till Eulenspiegel notes after work, Edition Kunzelmann GmbH, Adliswil / Zurich
1972 Instrumentation, an experiment on working with sound, text for a series of broadcasts on Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich, printed as a manuscript, © Verlag Walter Wollenweber

literature

1967 NZ, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, February 2, page 54, Hanover, ballet premiere (Erich Limmert)
1978 Neue Hannoversche / Hannoversche Presse No. 24 v.28: / January 29, 1978 Personal details (RH)
1984 Theater newspaper Mai Till Eulenspiegel world premiere (WK)
1992 Judith G. Prieberg, the composer Ernest Sauter, observations and notes in: Catalog raisonné Ernest Sauter, Verlag Albert Kunzelmann, Lottstetten
1993 Theater magazine of the Lower Saxony State Theater Hanover, February 5th concert (BW)
2003 Helmut Rohm, Away from Vanities, the composer Ernest Sauter, manuscript of the Bayern2Radio broadcast on July 28, 2003, Bayerischer Rundfunk
2011 Roland Spiegel, alpha-Forum: Interview with the composer Ernest Sauter. First broadcast on February 14, 2011, Bayerischer Rundfunk 2011

Record production

2010 Complete string trios, Ars Production ARS 38 492 under license from BRW-Service GmbH • Co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk • Producer: Annette Schumacher • © Ernest Sauter Foundation • (p) 2010