Ernst Klusen

Ernst Klusen (born February 20, 1909 in Düsseldorf , † July 31, 1988 in Bad Segeberg ) was a German musicologist , composer , music teacher and folk song researcher .

Youth and education

Ernst Klusen came from a family of musicians who toured Germany and Western Europe as a family company before the First World War. After the death of his father, he grew up with his grandmother in Krefeld and came into contact with the youth movement. After graduating from high school in 1927, he studied musicology and German language and literature at the University of Cologne and, from 1928, at the same time as school music at the Cologne University of Music. He financed his studies by playing the piano and organ as well as working as a music critic and choir director. In 1933 he had to withdraw his already completed dissertation on Gustav Mahler ; After the seizure of power, Mahler was an ostracized Jewish composer. After additional studies at universities in Vienna and Prague, he handed his second dissertation for political reasons in Cologne, but with Ludwig Schiedermair at the University of Bonn , which he in 1938 about his studies on the folk song in the Lower Rhine village on the example of the folk song treasure the community Hinsbeck wrote . Delayed by the war, it did not appear in print until 1941, at the same time as the opening volume of the series “Publications of the Lower Rhine Folk Song Archive Viersen - Scientific Series”. In a final chapter that was courageous for the time, Klusen rejected attempts to establish the National Socialist racial doctrine in folk song research as well.

Professional career and activities

Klusen first became a music educator in Krefeld and then in Viersen , where he had lived since 1938. In 1939 he founded the Lower Rhine Folk Song Archive there. 1940–1946 he was a soldier or a prisoner of war. First again in school service and co-founder and head of the Viersener VHS (1947–1961), he was a full professor at the chair for music education at the Pedagogical University of Neuss from 1962–1976 . He founded the Institute for Musical Folklore in Germany, was chairman of the commission for song, music and dance research in the German Society for Folklore , member of the "Raad vor de Nederlandsche Volkszang" ( Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, Amsterdam), 1975– 1977 Chairman of the Working Group for Rhenish Music History and was a juror at the International Muzikfestival voor de Jeugd in Neerpelt, Belgium , for around 30 years . His work was reflected in about 80 articles, e.g. B. in the yearbook for folk song research, in numerous song and music books as well as lectures and radio broadcasts. The sponsorship award for young artists and scientists, which has been awarded every two years by the city of Viersen since 1988, bears his name: Ernst Klusen Award . Ernst Klusen had been married since 1935, had two children and is buried in Viersen.

Activity as a musicologist and folk song researcher

Klusen is considered the nestor of musical folklore in Germany. In 1967 he tried to replace the term “ folk song ” with the “group song ” that was not “biased”, whereby he understood “group” in the sociological sense. In 1969 his important work Folksong - Find and Invention was published . In his opinion, the “people” was an imaginary unit in which “songs never lived”. He wrote that it was "a mistake to believe that there was ever anything other than" the group "as a song carrier" . Logically, he also took dialect songs into account in his research . There has been controversy over this thesis. For him, folk song research was participatory observation; not the object, but the music-making person was at its center. Seriously ill, he was able to correct the proofs of his work, which contains the sum of his scientific research, shortly before his death; it was published in 1989: Singing. Materials for a theory .

Awards

• 1977 Rhineland thaler from the Rhineland Regional Association
• 1978 Benedict Prize of the City of Mönchengladbach
• 1981 plaque of honor from the city of Krefeld

Works

Books and song books

• The folk song in the Lower Rhine village. Studies on the folk song treasure of the community of Hinsbeck with special consideration of the melodies . Voggenreiter, Potsdam 1941.
• The tribal character in the tunes of recent German folk songs . Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1953.
• The windmill. Lower Rhine folk songs . Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1955.
• Saint Martin. Songs and lamps . Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1955.
• The Bonn hymn book from 1550 . Edited by Ernst Klusen. Staufen-Verlag, Kamp-Lintfort 1965.
• Folk song. Find and Invention . Gerig, Cologne 1969.
• The folk song in the Lower Rhine village. Studies on the area of ​​life of the folk song of the community of Hinsbeck in the course of a generation. Voggenreiter, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1970.
• Preferred song types for ten to fourteen year olds . Gerig, Cologne 1971.
• Danger and misery of a new musical didactics . Gerig, Cologne 1973.
• On the situation of singing in the Federal Republic of Germany. Part 1: Dealing with the song (collaboration: V. Karbusický). Gerig, Cologne 1974.
• On the situation of singing in the Federal Republic of Germany. Part 2: The songs (collaboration: V. Karbusický). Gerig, Cologne 1975, ISBN 3-87252-097-0 .
• Johann Wilhelm Wilms. Life and work . Knuf, Buren 1975.
• Critical songs of the 70s . Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1978, ISBN 3-596-22950-2 .
• Folk songs from 500 years . Fischer, Frankfurt 1978, ISBN 3-596-22951-0 .
• The musical life of the city of Krefeld 1780–1945 . A. Volk, Cologne 1979/80.
• German songs. Texts and melodies . Insel, Frankfurt / M. 1980, ISBN 3-458-04855-2 .
• Gevaren van de nieuwere muziekdidaktiek . Muusses, Purmerend 1980, ISBN 90-231-8131-X .
• Electronic media and amateur musical activity . Gerig, Cologne 1980, ISBN 3-87252-117-9 .
• The most beautiful nursery rhymes and nursery rhymes. Naumann et al. Göbel, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-625-10721-X .
• To sing. Materials for a theory . Bosses. Regensburg 1989, ISBN 3764923369 .

Compositions

• Dialect song arrangements for choir: Et Paterke , Het Quieselche , Wenn't Kirmes is
• 3 string quartets
• Double concerto for violoncello, bassoon and orchestra
• Oratorio for solos, choir and large orchestra
• Triludium II for guitar, violoncello and flute

literature

• Rudolf Adrians: Ernst Klusen (= Heimatverein Viersen. Annual ticket. ). Heimatverein Viersen, Viersen 1999 ( online, PDF; 87261.32 kB ).
• Karl-Hans Bonzelett, Werner Tillmann: Ernst Klusen 1909–1988. The folk song as a life mission. In: Home book of the district of Viersen. Vol. 60, 2009 (2008), ISSN  0948-6631 , pp. 56-63 ( online, PDF; 131.68 kB ).
• Günther Noll : Ernst Klusen - 70 years. In: Ad marginem. Marginal notes on European ethnomusicology. No. 42, 1979, ISSN  0001-7965 ( online, PDF; 81.84 kB ).
• Günther Noll, Marianne Bröcker (ed.): Musical folklore - current. Festschrift for Ernst Klusen on his 75th birthday. Wegener, Bonn 1984, ISBN 3-921285-43-7 .
• Wilhelm Schepping: Obituary Ernst Klusen (1909–1988). In: Yearbook for Folk Song Research. Vol. 34, 1989, pp. 120-123 ( JSTOR 849196 ).
• Wolfgang Schmidt: Dr. Ernst Klusen passed away. In: The Lower Rhine. No. 4/1988. Krefeld 1988, ISSN  0342-5673 .
• Wilhelm Schepping: Folksong as an order. Life and work of Ernst Klusen. In: Günther Noll, Wilhelm Schepping (Hrsg.): Musical folk culture in the city of the present. Conference report Cologne 1988 of the commission for song, music and dance research in the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Volkskunde eV Metzler, Hannover 1992, ISBN 3-8156-3358-3 , pp. 209-219.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Klusen in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Schepping: Folksong as an order. Life and work of Ernst Klusen. Hanover 1992.