Eugen Werner Velte

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Eugen Werner Velte (born August 12, 1923 in Karlsruhe ; † June 8, 1984 there ) was a professor of music theory and composition , a freelance composer and music critic .

Live and act

Eugen Werner Velte, son of the violinist Eugen Gustav Velte, was musically gifted at an early age and studied music theory at the Badische Hochschule für Musik with Heinrich Casimir and Gerhard Nestler from 1942 to 1949 .

Before he received his first teaching position at his former teaching facility in 1957, which was soon converted into a full professorship for music theory and composition and whose rectorate he took over from 1971 after it was re-established as the State University of Music Karlsruhe , he earned his living as a freelancer for a long time Composer and music critic for funk and press (a subject he later taught); Sometimes also as a jazz pianist in American GI bars . Characterized by an unusually bright mind, outstanding musicological and philosophical expertise and a polite and helpful human nature, he was admired and valued by colleagues and students alike, professionally and personally, throughout his life. When the existence of the Baden University of Applied Sciences was in jeopardy at the beginning of the 1970s (due to urban political financial bottlenecks), he founded a group of friends that still exists today in a modified function until it reopened as a state university (and taken over by the state of Baden-Württemberg) with the help of private initiatives in order to enable students to continue their studies free of charge and not limited in time by standard study periods. He was also significantly involved in the expansion of the university; The move to Gottesaue Castle , which today includes a concert hall named after him, is due to his tireless personal commitment to the benefit of the students. Velte himself did not see the reopening of the castle.

His specialties included the work of Ludwig van Beethoven , Anton von Webern and the music of the 20th century , a combination that allows conclusions to be drawn about his own style of composition, as its essential characteristics - contrary to what the occasionally neoclassical work titles might suggest - musical expressionism , an intense, vocal-declamatory lyrical keynote and political awareness that can occasionally be viewed in the form of political music . His student Wolfgang Rihm describes his music with the following words: "Tension, silence, outburst, immersion - these were the main impressions that came from her when I was 15 years old when I came across this music more and more. [...] Nothing about this music is “common.” Everything seems to come from an extremely personal communication, an intimacy that is nowhere indiscreet. In its characteristic mixture of introversion and exuberant gestures, Velte's music corresponds to the thinking and nature of its author, just like him The music is like the ongoing conversation. Velte was a master of conversation and he could listen so eloquently that the partner could really come to himself. He was also a master of digression, of the often paradoxical dialectic, so that no safe stay, no comfortable settling into the reached position helped: everything kept moving, in flux " .

Eugen Werner Velte was an enlightened humanist , cosmopolitan, philosopher and free spirit with a Christian-Marxist attitude throughout his life . At the center of his philosophy was the individual, his freedom and responsibility. In this context, the founding of his famous group creative music , an interdisciplinary university event for experimental group improvisation , which has the greatest possible impact on the musical thinking of its participants, students of instrumental and theoretical subjects, and external members (such as actors and visual artists), is also significant would have. The performances , playing styles of instruments as well as formal-dramaturgical concepts developed by and in this open group went beyond anything that was previously and simultaneously offered by comparable universities. Velte himself played the role of the reserved, astute critic at these evening events, which in the dialectical interaction of action → analysis or analysis → action led to an exciting new experience of and a new way of thinking about music in general, and one reason for its great importance Group for its participants, including numerous composers.

Eugen Werner Velte was also successful as a lecturer. His internationally known composition students include u. a. Wolfgang Rihm , Volker Heyn , Sabine Schäfer , Joachim Krebs , Helmut Bieler-Wendt , Ursula Euteneuer-Rohrer and Andreas Raseghi .

In his private life he enjoyed working in graphology and meteorology . He was so well versed in the latter area that he has published several newspaper articles on it.

Discography and writings (excerpt)

  • Eugen Werner Velte: Blossoms and Sound… , features section, BNN (Badische Neuste Nachrichten) for the Federal Horticultural Show, BNN (Badische Neuste Nachrichten) 1967
  • Eugen Werner Velte: 1967 was a year of storms , Meteorological Article, BNN 1968
  • Eugen Werner Velte: Jazz - modern and pessimistic , review of the concert by the Miles Davis Quintet in the Great Hall of the Karlsruhe City Hall, BNN 1968
  • Eugen Werner Velte: Lineatur and sound organization in Beethoven's late string quartet in: Logos Musicae, Festschrift for Albert Palm, Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart (formerly Wiesbaden), 1982
  • Eugen Werner Velte , commemorative publication of the State University of Music Karlsruhe on the 10th anniversary of his death, 1994
  • Eugen Werner Velte and his students (2 CD), Hoepfner Classics in the Antes Edition ( Bella Musica Tonträger ), approx. 1995

Catalog raisonné

The manuscripts and original scores of Eugen Werner Veltes are archived at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, which also has performance material available (contact: The head of the university library, hannelore.bernt@hfm-karlsruhe.de, see also the link in the appendix).

  • Two three-part church inventions for piano, 1947
  • Six three-part church inventions for piano, 1947
  • Two-part linear invention for piano, 1947–48
  • Three-part fugue for piano, 1948
  • Trio sonata for two violins and piano, 1951
  • Two piano pieces , 1952
  • String trio 1947 , 1947–53
  • Prelude and Fugue for Organ, 1954
  • Two four-part fugues for piano, 1954
  • Duo for violin and piano , 1955
  • Three songs for soprano and piano based on expressionist texts (texts by Sophie von Leer, Herrmann Kasack and Wilhelm Klemm), 1955
  • Piano duo for four hands , 1956
  • Music for flute and piano , 1956
  • Suite for violoncello solo , 1956
  • Four piano pieces , 1956
  • Three songs for soprano and piano (texts by F. Garcia Lorca), 1957
  • Permutation fugue for string quartet or string orchestra, 1954–57
  • Ein Lied an Gott for soprano and string quartet (text by Else Lasker-Schüler), 1957
  • Missa brevis for four-part mixed a-cappella choir, 1958
  • Missa brevis for choir and string orchestra, 1958
  • Five little pieces for piano trio, 1959
  • Music for oboe and piano , 1959
  • Sonata for violoncello and piano , 1959
  • Four piano pieces , 1960
  • Fantasy on "Christ who makes us happy" for organ, 1962
  • Four pieces for flute, violin and piano , 1962
  • Trio for flute, violoncello and piano , 1963
  • Fugue and postlude for harpsichord, 1963
  • Moto perpetuo for string orchestra, 1963
  • Sonata for violin and piano , 1963
  • Toccata for organ, 1963
  • Menuetto (from Köchel Appendix 136) by WA Mozart , arrangement for string orchestra or string quartet, 1963
  • Two motets for soprano and organ (texts: St. Augustine), 1963
  • Two motets for soprano and organ (texts: Lamentations of Jeremiah), 1963
    Of these two works, an instrumentation for soprano and chamber orchestra by his pupil Wolfgang Rihm exists under the new work title "Four Motets [...]" from 1985.
  • Four pieces for clarinet, violoncello and piano , 1964
  • Three pieces for four viols , 1964
    An arrangement of this work by his pupil Norbert Krupp for string quartet from 1988 exists.
  • String trio 1964 , 1964
  • Toccata, fugue and postlude for accordion orchestra, 1964
  • Three pieces for string orchestra , 1965
    This work also exists in an arrangement by the author for string quartet from the same year.
  • String quartet 1966 , 1966
  • Two choirs for three male voices a-cappella (texts: Else Lasker-Schüler), 1966
  • Three songs for high voice and piano (texts: Ingeborg Bachmann), 1967
  • Three songs based on expressionist texts for two sopranos and clarinet (texts: Jakob van Hoddis, August Stramm and Franz Werfel), 1967
  • Elegy for flute and piano, 1967
  • Intrada for brass and timpani, 1967
  • Dialogue for flute and piano, 1968
  • Dialogue for flute and violin, 1968
  • Nachtstück I for piano, 1969
  • Fantasy for violin and piano, 1969
  • Piece I for two pianos, 1969
  • Three Little Piano Pieces , 1970
  • Three dialogues between violoncello and piano , 1970
  • Grave I for string orchestra, 1970
  • Musk for a church service in modern form for choir, three instrumental groups on different galleries and organ, 1970
  • Nachtstück II for piano, 1970
  • Sonata for solo violin , 1970
  • Nachtstück III for piano, 1971
  • String quartet 1971 , 1971
  • In memoriam… for piano, 1971
  • Intellege, ut credas - crede, ut intellegas (Augustine). Three-way conversation under this central theme between clarinet, violin and violoncello , 1972
  • Notturno for string quartet, 1974
  • Three songs for "Praise of the Easter Candle" (handed down from St. Augustine) for soprano and string orchestra, 1974
  • String trio , 1974
  • Three dialogues between cello and piano , 1974
  • Super flumina Babylonis , motet for mixed choir to four voices a cappella, 1975
  • Vision I for solo violin, piano, strings and wind instruments, 1975
  • Four bagatelles for string trio, 1977
  • In memory and in memory ... Grave II for chamber orchestra, 1977
  • Arietta I for violin solo, 1978
  • Arietta II for flute solo, 1978 (rev. 1981)
  • Music for a puppet theater based on "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for flute, violin, violoncello and piano, 1978
  • Picture puzzle in sounds for violin and piano, 1978
  • Instrumentation of the unfinished fugue on three new themes from JS Bach's "The Art of Fugue" for chamber orchestra, 1979
  • Impromptu I for piano, 1981
  • Nachtstück IV for piano, 1981
  • Music and silence for string trio, 1982
  • Andantino from the string quartet in G minor op. Posth. By 18-year-old Franz Schubert , arrangement for violin and piano, 1983
  • Arietta for solo viola, 1982
  • Study I for two pianos, 1982
  • Be still before the Lord (Zeph. 1, 7.14.15) for choir and instruments (notated graphically), undated

literature

  • Isabel Steppeler: Humorous master of sounding silence. The music college owes a lot to the composer Eugen Werner Velte (= Karlsruhe and its heads, episode 115). In: Badische Latest Nachrichten of May 22, 2015, p. 23

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Velte, Eugen Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1984
Place of death Karlsruhe