Fritz Werner (composer)

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Fritz Werner (born December 15, 1898 in Berlin , † December 22, 1977 in Heilbronn ) was a German choir director, Protestant church music director , conductor, organist and composer. From 1947 to 1973 he was the founder and director of the Heinrich Schütz Choir Heilbronn eV

Life

Fritz Eugen Heinrich Werner was born on December 15, 1898 as the second child of the piano builder Eugen Werner and his wife Clara, b. Baunack, born in Berlin. His older brother was Kurt Werner (1897–1979). The father Eugen Werner ran a piano workshop on Puttkamerstraße in the Kreuzberg district. Fritz Werner attended the 44th community school (elementary school) in Berlin and was considered an exceptionally gifted student. After primary school, he attended the Bertram-Realschule (modern language orientation) in Berlin. There he learned to play the piano. With his brother he became a choirboy in the liturgical choir of the Holy Trinity Church. At the age of ten he began his first attempts at composition under the guidance of his music teacher Richard Münnich and received organ lessons from the renowned organist Wolfgang Reimann. Werner also received violin lessons. In 1915 he moved to the Friedrich-Werderschen-Oberrealschule in Berlin to prepare for the Abitur. However, the project was interrupted by military service in Heidelberg. In June 1917 Werner returned to Berlin to complete the secondary school diploma. At first he enrolled for a law degree, but was again drafted into the military. In the later prisoner of war in the prison camp of Boisleuxau-Mont he founded and directed a male choir. After returning home in 1919, instead of a lengthy law degree, he decided to study music in Berlin and enrolled in musicology and psychology at the Philosophical Faculty of the Friedrich Wilhelms University.

Between 1920 and 1935 he studied at the Berlin Academy for Church and School Music as well as at the Berlin University and the Prussian Academy of the Arts with Wolfgang Reimann . He then became an organist and school musician in Potsdam-Babelsberg (Bethlehem Church) in 1935 . Werner then worked from 1936 to 1938 as organist and cantor at the St. Nikolai Church in Potsdam. In 1938 he advanced to church music director and at the beginning of the war in 1939 he became organist at the Garrison Church in Potsdam and from 1939 music director at Radio Paris. After the Second World War and subsequent imprisonment in France, he became organist and choirmaster at the Kilian's Church in Heilbronn am Neckar from 1946 to 1964 . With the approval of the American military government, Fritz Werner founded the Heinrich-Schütz-Kreis, later the Heinrich-Schütz-Chor Heilbronn, in March 1947. In December 1954 he was appointed professor.

Fritz Werner was one of those church musicians who, like Rudolf Mauersberger , Günther Ramin or Johann Nepomuk David , made significant contributions to the renewal and revival of church music in the 20th century.

Works (selection)

  • And there was light , choral work
  • To the dead - choral work to honor those who died in the First World War
  • Psalm 103 , choral work
  • From the vanity of the world , cantata
  • Evening song to nature , cantata
  • The message , choral music
  • various works for organ

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wengert, Karl-Friedrich : Fritz Werner - A composer in our time - list of works. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1999, ISBN 978-3-928990-72-1 ( Small series of publications by the Heilbronn City Archives. Volume 47)
  2. ^ Wengert, Karl-Friedrich : Fritz Werner - A composer in our time - list of works. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1999, ISBN 978-3-928990-72-1 ( Small series of publications by the Heilbronn City Archives. Volume 47)
  3. ↑ Handbook for the Evangelical Church Hymn, Vol. II / 1, Life Pictures of the Song Poets and Melodists, Göttingen 1957, p. 293
  4. ↑ Handbook for the Evangelical Church Hymn, Vol. II / 1, Life Pictures of the Song Poets and Melodists, Göttingen 1957, p. 293
  5. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 25, No. 71, April 11, 1973.
  6. ↑ Werner Föll: Chronicle of the city of Heilbronn . Volume X: 1970-1974. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1999, ISBN 3-928990-68-3 , p. 273 ( publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn . Volume 38).
personal data
SURNAME Werner, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and church musician
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 22nd December 1977
Place of death Heilbronn