Fritz Hellmann (musician)

Fritz Hellmann (born April 29, 1862 in Lüneburg , † April 21, 1928 in Halberstadt ) was a German musician, military bandmaster and Royal Prussian music director . He was best known as the conductor of the Halberstadt Wagner Festival and the Halberstadt Municipal Theater Orchestra.

Life

family

Fritz Hellmann was born on April 29, 1862 as the son of the trumpeter corporal in the Hanover Queen Hussar Regiment in Lüneburg. Friederich Carl Hellmann and his wife Auguste Marie Christiane, née. Lehmann, born and christened Heinrich Friederich Carl on August 17, 1862. On March 26, 1889, Fritz Hellmann married Martha Anna Valeska, born in Dessau . Seelmann (born October 31, 1861 in Ratibor / Upper Silesia, † May 17, 1940 in Halberstadt). The father Friederich Carl Hellmann was later Royal Music Director in Magdeburg .

Career

Fritz Hellmann studied military music and violin at the Royal Academic College for Performing Music in Berlin. He played with the famous Wagner conductor Hans von Bülow's symphony concerts . In 1883 Fritz Hellmann came to the band of the infantry regiment Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (2nd Magdeburgisches) No. 27 in Magdeburg. In 1888 he became their staff hoboist (= military bandmaster), in 1903 he was promoted to music conductor and in 1907 he was appointed Royal Prussian music director. With the relocation of the regiment, Halberstadt became his lifelong place of activity from 1893. From 1895 the 45 instrumentalists of the music corps of the 27th Infantry Regiment also played as an orchestra in musical theater and choral symphonic performances in Halberstadt. The renowned composer and conductor Max Bruch counted Fritz Hellmann “one of the most excellent and capable conductors”.

In the festive inauguration of the designs of architect Bernhard Sehring built City Theater on November 30, 1905 Fritz Hellmann played with the increased to 60 musicians military band of the Infantry Regiment. 27, the prelude to the "Meistersinger" by Richard Wagner and the next day a gala performance with the »Rheingold« . The music corps of the 27th Infantry Regiment also formed the theater orchestra for the regular musical theater performances. Together with the then famous and internationally sought-after surgeon and gall bladder specialist, patron and Wagner enthusiast Prof. Dr. med. Hans Kehr initiated Fritz Hellmann's annual Wagner Festival from 1903, which turned Halberstadt into a »Little Bayreuth«. They reached their peak in 1910 with three Meistersinger performances with Bayreuth star singers and with 120 choir singers in the city theater (including a free “people's performance”). The band of the 27th Infantry Regiment was strengthened by the military band of the Hanoverian Infantry Regiment No. 165 under the direction of Music Master Emil Radochla (1867–1928) from the Goslar and Quedlinburg locations with 40 instrumentalists to 95 musicians. In 1914, with the 27th Infantry Regiment, Fritz Hellmann and the military band entered the First World War with "sounding games". In 1919, the military band, which had been dissolved after the Versailles Treaty , and the Bad Harzburg spa orchestra formed the Halberstadt Municipal Orchestra under MD Florenz Werner (from 2019: Harz Symphony Orchestra ). In 1920 Fritz Hellmann took over the management of the orchestra and several Halberstadt choirs. MD Fritz Hellmann conducted his last choral symphonic concert to commemorate Beethoven's 100th anniversary in 1927, when he performed the "Missa solemnis" with Halberstadt choirs and the city orchestra . A memorial concert was held on the 1st anniversary of his death in 1929.

literature

• Rüdiger Pfeiffer: One hundred years of the orchestra of the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater: From the beginning to the end of the Second World War . In: One Hundred Years of Orchestra of the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater , ed. from the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater, Halberstadt and Quedlinburg 2019, pp. 17–33.
• Rüdiger Pfeiffer: The music and theater city of Halberstadt . In: Rüdiger Pfeiffer (ed.): Against the grain. The youth string orchestra Halberstadt. A youth orchestra in the GDR (= writings on the cultural history of Central Germany; vol. 2). Frank & Timme Verlag for Scientific Literature, Berlin 2015, ISBN 3-7329-0151-3 , pp. 21–43, here: 28–32.
• Werner Hartmann: Theater in Halberstadt from the beginning to 1905. On the history of the theater in Halberstadt , Bd. 2, ed. from the Theater-Förderverein Halberstadt eV, Halberstadt 1997, pp. 123–127.
• Rüdiger Pfeiffer: On Halberstadt's musical life from the turn of the century to the end of World War II . In: Nordharzer Jahrbuch, Vol. 18/19 (= Publications of the City Museum Halberstadt 26), Halberstadt 1995, pp. 185–196.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Baptism entry via Familysearch.
2. ↑ Ancestry's marriage register.
3. ↑ Quotation from Werner Hartmann, Theater in Halberstadt, ed. from the Friends of the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater eV Halberstadt, Halberstadt 1997, vol. 2, p. 125f.