Günther Massenkeil

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Günther Massenkeil (born March 11, 1926 in Wiesbaden ; † December 17, 2014 in Bad Honnef ) was a German musicologist , university professor , author and concert singer .

biography

Childhood and youth

Günther Massenkeil was born as the son of Josef Massenkeil (1891–1987) and Lotte Massenkeil, b. Böhlen (1901–1997) born. The father came from a family of teachers in Rheingau, taught for a long time as a student councilor in Wiesbaden and, after the Second World War, was a senior government and school councilor and most recently director of the humanistic grammar school in Wiesbaden. He had studied classical philology and newspaper science and was primarily active as a writer in the field of the history of his native Nassau. Günther Massenkeil self-published a reprint of his publications in 2009. Until the dissolution in 1933, Josef Massenkeil was a member of the Center Party in the Hessian municipal parliament. After the war he was one of the founders of the CDU in Wiesbaden.

Günther Massenkeil was the third child in the family. The first child died in childhood. The older brother Heinz Josef (* 1925) became a doctor (gynecologist) and was chief physician in Mönchengladbach, the younger brother Jürgen (* 1931) became a lawyer and worked in Koblenz.

He received his first piano lessons from his father, later in the Wiesbaden music seminar Elisabeth Güntzel, where he developed into an accomplished pianist who also acted as piano accompanist for well-known singers such as the tenor Franz Fehringer (1910–1988). In addition, he received organ lessons and at the age of 14 received a position at the Wiesbaden Catholic Church of St. Kilian as a substitute for the organist who had been drafted for military service. In 1941, the pastor of another church in Wiesbaden-Bierstadt entrusted him with setting his patronage song to St. Birgit, which is sung there to this day.

Because of a serious illness, Günther Massenkeil was postponed from military service. At the beginning of March 1945 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, but no longer had to fight, but was taken to a hospital in Sigmaringen due to illness and from there was released into French captivity after the end of the war . The stay there lasted two years. Most recently, Günther Massenkeil was imprisoned in the Dépôt de prisonniers de guerre 101 Mutzig . Here he founded a choir and organized concerts. This gave him the privilege of being able to leave the camp more often under guard and play the organ in the church in the nearby wine town of Soultz-les-Bains .

education and study

Günther Massenkeil was able to finish his school days at the Humanist Gymnasium with the Abitur due to his postponement from military service in 1944 and then studied for a semester at the Technical University of Darmstadt in order to become an organ builder if necessary . After his release from captivity, he studied musicology and school music at the University of Mainz from 1947 to 1951 . From 1950 he was a member of the Catholic student association VKDSt Hasso-Rhenania Mainz . In order to “get to know another side of France”, he applied for a scholarship from the French government, which took him to the Sorbonne in Paris in 1951/1952 . In 1952 he received his doctorate in Mainz. phil. with a thesis on Giacomo Carissimi (The oratorical art in the Latin histories and oratorios by G. Carissimis) and in 1953 passed the state examination for the artistic teaching post for music in secondary schools. In 1954 he became a research assistant in Mainz. In 1961 he completed his habilitation with a contribution on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (investigations into the problem of symmetry in WA Mozart's instrumental music) and became a private lecturer .

Scientific activity

In 1966 he was appointed full professor and director of the musicology seminar at the University of Bonn . In 1991 he retired. From 1972 to 1974 he was also director of the Beethoven Archive in Bonn and from 1972 to 1998 he was chairman of the board of trustees of the Max Reger Institute . From 1975 to 2011 he was head of the musicology section of the Görres Society and editor of the Church Music Yearbook. From 1991–1992 he headed the newly founded Institute for Music and Theater of the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (today's University of Music and Theater ) in Rostock .

His main field of work was sacred music from the 16th to 20th centuries. His works on Giacomo Carissimi and Marc-Antoine Charpentier are just as well known as those on Mozart and his two-volume work on oratorios and passion . In German-speaking countries he became known through the eight-volume lexicon Das Große Lexikon der Musik . The basis for this was the Dictionnaire de la musique (1970–1976) by Marc Honegger , which Günther Massenkeil largely edited and supplemented.

Artistic activity

From 1954 Günther Massenkeil also worked as a singer (bass baritone). In 1975 he perfected his singing activities by studying with Ellen Bosenius from the Cologne University of Music and gained international recognition as an oratorio and lieder singer. Numerous radio and vinyl recordings are evidence of this. The songs of the Rhine Romanticism around 1840 also appeared on CD. Günther Massenkeil ended his career as a concert singer in 1994.

family

In 1954 he married Ursula Gross (1928–2000). There are four children from this marriage. The family initially lived in Wiesbaden, and since 1960 in Mainz. While he had been working at the University of Bonn since 1966, he moved to Bad Honnef in 1969 , where he lived in the Rhöndorf district .

Mass Wedge traveled a lot. Above all, he was drawn to France , to which he had felt close at least since his time in Paris. One of these trips took him again to Soultz-les-Bains and to the organ of his captivity. It was not until 2005 that he learned that it was a Silbermann organ . He supported an urgently needed restoration with many actions and personal commitment and was awarded (not only for this) with the honorary citizenship of Soultz-les-Bains. In 2008 the organ was put back into use in the presence of Günther Massenkeil.

Even after his retirement, Massenkeil continued to work as an author, lecturer and church musician.

honors and awards

Works (selection)

  • The oratorical art in the Latin histories and oratorios of Giacomo Carissimis. o. O. 1952, (Mainz, University, dissertation, 1952, typewritten).
  • Investigations into the problem of symmetry in the instrumental music of WA Mozart. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1962, (at the same time: Mainz, university, habilitation paper, 1961).
  • The oratorio (= Das Musikwerk. 37, ZDB -ID 786192-8 ). Volk Verlag Gerig, Cologne 1970, (also published in English: The Oratorio (= Anthology of Music. 37, ZDB -ID 2294628-7 ). Ibid 1970).
  • as editor with Marc Honegger: Das Große Lexikon der Musik. 8 volumes. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 1978–1982.
  • Oratorio and Passion (= handbook of musical genres. 10, 1–2). 2 parts. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1998–1999, ISBN 3-89007-133-3 (part 1), ISBN 3-89007-481-2 (part 2).
  • A Wiesbaden philologist as a writer. Joseph Massenkeil (1891–1987). Contributions to folklore and history of his Hessen-Nassau homeland and other topics. Edited by Günther Massenkeil. Self-published, Bad Honnef 2010.

Contributions

  • The repetitive figures in Giacomo Carissimi's oratorios. In: Archives for Musicology . Vol. 13, No. 1, 1956, pp. 42-60, JSTOR 929558 .
  • Marc-Antoine Charpentier as composer for the fair. In: Carl Dahlhaus , Reiner Kluge, Ernst H. Meyer , Walter Wiora (eds.): Report on the International Musicological Congress, Leipzig, 1966. Bärenreiter et al., Kassel et al. 1970, pp. 228–238.
  • Religious aspects of Beethoven's Gellert songs. In: Walter Wiora (Ed.): Religious music in non-liturgical works from Beethoven to Reger (= studies on the history of music in the 19th century. 51). Bosse, Regensburg 1978, ISBN 3-7649-2135-8 , pp. 83-96.
  • Rhine romanticism in the German solo song around the middle of the 19th century. In: Siegfried Kross (ed.): Musikalische Rheinromantik (= contributions to Rhenish music history. 140 = working group for Rhenish music history. Report on the annual conference. 1985). Merseburger, Kassel 1989, ISBN 3-87537-234-4 , pp. 146-166.
  • The Bonn Beethoven Cantata (1845) by Franz Liszt. In: Jobst Peter Fricke (Hrsg.): The language of music. Festschrift for Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller's 60th birthday on July 21, 1989 (= Cologne contributions to music research. 165). Bosse, Regensburg 1989, ISBN 3-7649-2407-1 , pp. 381-400.
  • The three kings in music. In: Peter Ackermann, Ulrike Kienzle Adolf Nowak (eds.): Festschrift for Winfried Kirsch on his 65th birthday (= Frankfurt contributions to musicology. 24). Schneider, Tutzing 1996, ISBN 3-7952-0857-2 , pp. 21-33.

Numerous other publications in magazines, compilations and encyclopedias, partly reprinted as word and tone in Christian music , Paderborn, 2008.

Editions

  • Polyphonic lamentations from the first half of the 16th century. 1965.
  • Cantatas by G. Carissimi (1605-1674). 1986.
  • Franz Liszt - cantata for the inauguration of the Beethoven monument in Bonn. 1986.
  • Max Reger - Four choral cantatas. 4 vols. 1988-1990.

swell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernhard Hartmann: Bonn musicologist died at the age of 88. In: General-Anzeiger , December 18, 2014, accessed on December 18, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Massenkeil, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musicologist, university professor, author and concert singer
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden
DATE OF DEATH 17th December 2014
Place of death Bad Honnef