Georg Knepler

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Georg Knepler (front), 1952

Georg Knepler (born December 21, 1906 in Vienna , † January 14, 2003 in Berlin ) was an Austrian pianist , conductor and musicologist .

Life

Georg Knepler, son of the composer and librettist Paul Knepler and nephew of the music publisher and impresario Hugo Knepler , studied from 1926 piano with Eduard Steuermann , conducting with Hans Gál and musicology at Guido Adler , Wilhelm Fischer , Egon Wellesz , Rudolf von Ficker and Robert Lach at of the University of Vienna . In 1931 he was with the dissertation The form in the instrumental works Johannes Brahms ' to Dr. phil. PhD. At the same time he accompanied Karl Kraus on the piano from 1928 to 1931 , who appeared with his "lectures" of the operettas by Jacques Offenbach in Vienna, Berlin, Prague , Munich and other cities. During the same period he worked as Kapellmeister , répétiteur and conductor at the Vienna Volksoper and the Wiener Stadttheater , from 1930 to 1931 in Mannheim and with Karl Franz Rankl in Wiesbaden and as leader of workers' choirs. The years 1932/33 were marked by the collaboration with Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler . He was the pianistic companion of Helene Weigel , who sang Eisler's "lullabies of a proletarian mother" at workers' meetings.

From 1933 the Jewish and communist Georg Knepler was banned from any activity and he returned to Austria. Since he had joined the banned KPÖ in Vienna in April 1933 and sold communist newspapers, he was arrested in January 1934, but was able to emigrate to England that same year . There he turned more and more intensively to the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , made their worldview and dialectics his own and developed his own research on this basis. Parallel to his musicological and journalistic work, he worked as an opera conductor and as the musical director of the emigrant theater "Laterndl" and secretary of the Austrian Center .

In 1946 he went back to Vienna and took over the function of cultural advisor for the KPÖ. From 1949 Knepler worked in East Berlin , where the GDR was founded in the same year . He retained his Austrian citizenship. In 1957 he was transferred from the KPÖ to the SED .

Teaching activity in Berlin

In 1950 Georg Knepler founded the German University of Music Berlin, whose rector he became, and which he headed until 1959. In 1964 it was named the “Hanns Eisler” University of Music in Berlin . His concept was aimed at the training of musicians and singers “new type” who, in addition to their professional qualifications, should also actively participate in social life. From 1959 to 1970 he headed the Musicological Institute at the Humboldt University in Berlin, where he concentrated on the development of Marxist-oriented teaching and research as an answer to bourgeois musicology. In 1964 Knepler became a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR .

Georg Knepler died on January 14, 2003 in the Köpenick hospital. He left behind his wife Florence Knepler (1910–2011), née Wiles, a son, John and two grandchildren, Teya and Reuben.

Awards

Works

  • 19th Century Music History . Berlin 1961.
  • History as a way to understand music. On the theory, method and history of music historiography . Leipzig 1977, 2nd revised version 1982.
  • Thoughts about music. Speeches, experiments, essays, reviews . Berlin 1980.
  • Karl Kraus reads Offenbach . Berlin 1984.
  • Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, approximations . Berlin 1991; New edition 2005.
  • Mozart in his time and in ours. Excerpt from the last chapter of "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Approaches . In: Zwischenwelt. Journal for the culture of exile and resistance . Vol. 19, No. 4; Vienna February 2003, ISSN  1606-4321 , pp. 36-38.

literature

  • Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Knepler, Georg . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century. Volume 2: J-R. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 696.
  • Austrian music lexicon . Volume 3. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7001-3045-7 , p. 1081.
  • Renate Göllner & Gerhard Scheit : "... there would be love and brother association" - Georg Knepler in memory. An obituary . In: Zwischenwelt. Journal of the Culture of Exile and Resistance . Vol. 19, No. 4; Vienna February 2003, ISSN  1606-4321 , pp. 27/28.
  • Gerhard Scheit: "So the English can't grumble at all." From an interview with Georg Knepler about resistance, anti-Semitism and exile (conducted by G. Scheit on May 2nd and 3rd, 1992 in Berlin-Grünau). In: Zwischenwelt. Journal of the Culture of Exile and Resistance . Vol. 19, No. 4; Vienna February 2003, ISSN  1606-4321 , pp. 28-35.
  • Golan Gur: The Other Marxism: Georg Knepler and the Anthroplogy of Music. In: Musicologia Austriaca. May, 2016, Article
  • Anne C. Shreffler: Berlin Walls: Dahlhaus, Knepler, and Ideologies of Music History . In: Journal of Musicology . Autumn, 2003, vol. 20, no. 4 , p. 498–525, abstract (English)
  • Gerhard Oberkofler : About Georg Knepler's musicological studies at the University of Vienna. An archival note on his hundredth birthday . Announcements from the Alfred Klahr Society, No. 3/2006.
  • Knepler, Georg. In: Brockhaus-Riemann Musiklexikon. CD-Rom, Directmedia Publishing, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89853-438-3 , p. 5488.
  • Gerhard Oberkofler and Manfred Mugrauer: Georg Knepler. Musicologist and Marxist thinker from Vienna [paperback]. StudienVerlag Wien / Innsbruck 2014

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Knepler, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian pianist, conductor and musicologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 21, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 2003
Place of death Berlin