Georg Gruber (choir director)

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Georg Gruber (born July 27, 1904 in Vienna ; Austria-Hungary ; † September 5, 1979 in Fort Beaufort , Cape Province , South Africa ) was an Austrian musicologist , choir director , composer and conductor .

Life

Austria

Gruber enrolled at the University of Vienna in 1922 to study economics. Despite his academic success, he decided to devote his education entirely to music. In 1924 he moved to the Vienna State Academy for Music and Performing Arts , where he took the subjects organ, piano, Gregorian chant, church music and church chant, as well as conducting and composition. One of his teachers was primarily Professor Josef Lechthaler . In 1926 he finished these studies with recognition. Building on this, Gruber deepened his studies in music history (with Guido Adler ), comparative musicology ( Robert Lach and Robert Haas ) and conducting ( Rudolf Nilius ). At the end of 1928 he received his doctorate in musicology (Dr. phil.) With the dissertation Das deutsche Lied in the Innsbruck court orchestra of Archduke Ferdinand (1567–1591) .

Gruber got his first job as director of the adult music school, where he also led a boys' choir and opera directors. At the same time he was a lecturer in music history and conducting orchestras and choirs.

Gruber became known as a choirmaster or one of the seven Kapellmeister at the Association of the Vienna Boys 'Choir founded in 1924 , where he was appointed chief conductor in 1930 and organized several concert tours through Europe until 1932, before moving to North America for the first time with the Boys' Choir in 1932 and then to North America in 1936/37 South America traveled.

In 1928 Gruber became a co-founder of the Catholic-Academic Singership Waltharia , but he soon passed its leadership to his colleague and friend Hans Burkhardt .

In 1937 he quit his job with the Vienna Boys' Choir after differences with the rector of the castle chapel and chairman of the association, Joseph Schnitt . He founded the Vienna Mozart Boys' Choir , with which he toured Europe, the USA, Oceania and Australia, taking opportunities to conduct symphonic orchestras.

After Austria joined the German Reich in March 1938, Gruber was appointed acting director of the School of the Vienna Boys' Choir. In May 1938 he also conducted the Vienna Singing Association .

Australia

At the beginning of the Second World War , Gruber and his boys' choir were in Australia . Although he entered the country with peaceful intent, he became a “guest” of the Australian government due to the state of war with the German Reich. His choirboys came under the patronage of Daniel Mannix , Archbishop of Melbourne , formed the basis of the new St. Patrick's Cathedral Boys Choir and were assigned host parents. Gruber directed this cathedral boys' choir, while until 1941 he was also allowed to teach school music in a teacher training institute.

After Japan occupied the island of New Guinea, Gruber was taken to the internment camp Tatura I (Victoria), about 160 km north of Melbourne, in 1942 , where other civilians of German descent, so-called enemy aliens , had to stay. There he became director of the camp orchestra. After an internship exchange failed, Gruber wanted to stay in Australia. He also believed to have discovered that Australian boys have strikingly clear voices, which would be ideal for a successful boys' choir.

After the end of the war, Gruber applied to be able to stay in Australia in order to found a world-class boys 'choir here, because all boys in the boys' choir were allowed to immigrate. However, Gruber's application was rejected several times because he had been blackened by a woman who felt she was being neglected as an ardent National Socialist at the immigration authorities, so that immigration minister Arthur Calwell rejected the application. Objections of "his" boys to the Australian government also failed.

Gruber resisted his repatriation several times by fleeing because he feared that he would destroy his pianistic talent in Austria through involuntary hard work. So it happened that Gruber was one of the last three inmates of the Tatura camp and was only deported to Austria in November 1947.

In Austria Gruber was subjected to denazification and acquitted. He directed performances of the singers Waltharia again. In 1949 he moved to Salzburg . He was also under discussion to direct the Salzburg Festival in 1949, but this was prevented by the Ministry of Education due to the objections of the Rector Schnitt (Boys' Choir).

Here he first researched Mozart and then worked as co-editor of Bernhard Paumgartner on the Mozart anniversary edition, the recordings that took place in 1956 in the Philips studios in Baarn (Netherlands). Gruber was also managing director of the Badgastein International Music Festival in 1950 and General Secretary of the 26th World Music Days of the International Society for New Music (ISCM) in 1952 in Salzburg.

Gruber gained a certain fame with his idea of promoting the Olympic Games for choral singing (cf. Delphic Games of the Modern Age ).

South Africa

In 1953 Gruber emigrated to South Africa and became a lecturer at Rhodes University in Grahamstown , where he founded the Rhodes University Chamber Choir in 1953 , but traveled back to Salzburg twice to finish his Mozart studies.

At the beginning of 1955 he was appointed university professor as the successor to FH Hartmann - who received a call to the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.

Thanks to his organizational and professional skills, he built what was initially a small institute into a center for music education recognized throughout the country . Gruber became a pioneer in the field of choral music in South Africa and led the choir for 20 years. This choir performed in South Africa, Namibia and Rhodesia and went on tour to Europe (1960, 1962, 1964, 1968), where it was extremely successful as the “singing ambassador of South Africa”.

Gruber was an advisory member of the Performing Arts Board of the Cape Province as well as a member of other committees of music education.

At the end of 1973 Gruber retired from Rhodes University to devote himself more to composition. He was invited to set up a chair for blacks at the nearby University of Fort Hare , which from 1974 offered a four-year degree in music education (Bachelor of Pedagogics in Music). So Gruber had the unique opportunity to deal with African music in depth . He was very much appreciated for his commitment. A little later, Gruber fell ill with Alzheimer's . In 1976 he died of a heart attack.

family

Gruber had two children. The son, Georg M. Gruber, was a lecturer at the Physical Department of Rhodes University and died unexpectedly early. The daughter Ingeborg worked for several years as a lecturer at the South African College of Music in Cape Town, then taught privately and died alone a few years after the death of her mother.

plant

Film music

Monographs

Appreciation

After the Second World War, Gruber received a badge of honor for services to the Republic of Austria of unknown form.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Not to be confused with the later founded Mozart Boys' Choir Vienna .
  2. ^ History of the schools of the Vienna Boys' Choir
  3. ↑ Conductors of the Vienna Singing Association
  4. ↑ George Negus Tonight: Vienna Boys Choir ( Memento January 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Australian Broadcasting Corporation , March 22, 2004.
  5. ↑ Thomas Greif: Interned at the End of the World ( Memento from September 26, 2006 in the Internet Archive ). In: Sunday paper , 2001; about the missionary Wilhelm Fugmann .
  6. ↑ a b c d No peace at war's end for “kindly uncle” . In: The Sydney Morning Herald , August 7, 1984
  7. ^ Choral Music in South Africa ( Memento of October 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), St George's Cathedral, Cape Town.
  8. ↑ Bernhard lead Binger: Rural backgrounds and academic strategies . (PDF; 289 kB) Higher education, the Music Department and the Indigenous Music and Oral History Project at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa
  9. ↑ Rosemary Matier: Georg Gruber: His contribution to music education in South Africa an evaluation of selected vocal compositions and arrangements . Master thesis, Faculty of Arts, Rhodes University, January 1991
personal data
SURNAME Gruber, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian musicologist, choir director, composer and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 1979
Place of death Fort Beaufort , Cape Province , South Africa