Fritz Heitmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fritz Heitmann (born May 9, 1891 in Hamburg-Ochsenwerder , † September 7, 1953 in Berlin ) was a German organist .

Life

Fritz Heitmann's first training in organ playing took place with his father, who was also an organist. Later he attended the Bernuth Conservatory in Hamburg. From 1909 he was a student of Karl Straube , Max Reger and Josef Pembaur the Elder at the Leipzig Conservatory . J .

He took over his first organist post in 1912 at the cathedral in Schleswig . During the First World War , Heitmann worked in the hospital administration service in Namur . In 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm II appointed him as organist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin . From the following year Heitmann was also organist at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin . On May 1, 1932, he moved to the Berlin Cathedral as cathedral organist , where he initiated the series of cathedral vespers, which has been maintained to this day. Numerous concert tours have taken him through Europe, Russia and the USA .

From 1923 Heitmann taught at the Berlin Academy for School and Church Music, where he was appointed professor in 1925. He later taught at the Stern Conservatory and at the University of Music . In 1923 Heitmann founded the Berlin Motet Association.

Shortly before the end of the Second World War, he was included in the list of God- favored people drawn up by Joseph Goebbels as one of two organists.

Heitmann was considered an important Bach interpreter. In 1938 he recorded the German Organ Mass for Telefunken on the Arp Schnitger organ in Charlottenburg Palace , and in 1950 he made one of the first recordings of Bach's Art of Fugue for the same label .

Like the Charlottenburg Schnitger organ, the Sauer organ in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was also destroyed in air raids in 1943. But there are ten recordings on shellac records from 1929 and 1930, on which the sound of this organ, played by Fritz Heitmann, was recorded.

Recordings

  • The Arp Schnitger organ in the Eosander Chapel of the Charlottenburg Palace - Bach “third part of the keyboard exercise” (= German Organ Mass ). LP. Teldec.
  • The Sauer organ in the Berlin Cathedral - Fritz Heitmann. JS Bach, H. Grabner, M. Reger, radio recordings from 1940 and 1944. LP and CD by Berlin Classics, CD released in 1995
  • "The Art of Fugue (BWV 1080)", organ of the crypt church of the Berlin Cathedral. LP. Teldec. (Photos are dated May 19, 1950)

literature

  • Richard Voge, Elisabeth Heitmann: Fritz Heitmann - The life of a German organist. Merseburger, Berlin 1963.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Harry Waibel : Servants of many gentlemen: Former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , pp. 131f.
  2. ↑ [1] ( RAR ; 32.5 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Heitmann, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German organist
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1953
Place of death Berlin