Georg Richard Kruse

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Georg Richard Kruse (born January 17, 1856 in Greiffenberg , Province of Silesia , † February 23, 1944 in Berlin ) was a music researcher and a well-known author of the Reclam publishing house's music series . He has edited operas and worked as a conductor in Europe and North America. He was the founder of the Lessing Museum in Berlin and has left an extensive collection of autobiographies by artists and scientists of his time. As part of his work, he has made a significant contribution to the works of Albert Lortzing and Otto Nicolais .

Live and act

Kruse was born in Greiffenberg as the son of the theater director Georg Kruse . He had violin lessons from the conductor Carl Moritz von Weber , who came from the Carl Maria von Weber family. As early as 1869 he played in the theater orchestra in Breslau . In 1871, when he was only 15 years old, he was given the opportunity to gain first practical experience as a conductor as the deputy of the Kapellmeister at the summer theater in Magdeburg . In 1872 he composed the incidental music for a play by his father entitled “A Man from the People”. The young Kruse acquired the necessary professional experience with various engagements as an opera conductor at several theaters in Germany. During this time, he worked in Stralsund and Putbus on Rügen in 1873 , where he also wrote the folk play "Anneken vom Mönchgut". In 1874 he was engaged in Krefeld , but also wrote music for theater plays in the following years and in 1880 edited Franz von Suppés “Dichter und Bauer”. In 1885 he worked in Magdeburg, then in 1888/89 Detmold , where the decisive influences for his later life's work took place. Georg Richard Kruse was Kapellmeister in Detmold at the court theater. From this time on, Kruse devoted himself to researching and reviving Lortzing's works, and in later years, as a music writer, he became one of Lortzing's leading biographers. There he conducted Mozart'sThe Magic Flute ” and “ Don Juan ”, Carl Maria von Weber's “ Der Freischütz ” and “ Euryanthe ”, the “Troubadour” by Verdi and Lortzing, “ Undine ” and “ Zar und Zimmermann ”.

After Detmold, other stations were Halle (Saale) , Gotha and Dresden , the city theater in Ulm , and later Leipzig and Berlin . There he was previously active in 1890 as a composer and conductor of two folk plays at the ' Bürgerliches Schauspielhaus '. In 1891 an engagement followed at the Berlin “ Belle-Alliance-Theater ” as a concert and theater conductor. From 1891 to 1894 Kruse lived in Milwaukee , where he worked at the German Theater there, in St. Louis and in Chicago . For the opening of the local Schiller Theater , he wrote the music for the festival “The Pioneers”. He also worked as a music critic and correspondent for the " Milwaukee Herold ". With the fairy tale opera " Hansel and Gretel " by Engelbert Humperdinck , Georg Richard Kruse made an opera tour through Germany and Holland as entrepreneur and director from 1894 to 1896 and thus contributed to the spread of the work, which was created in 1893, to a large extent. From 1896 to 1899 he was Kapellmeister in Bern and St. Gallen until he moved to Berlin in 1900 and then devoted himself primarily to research, collecting and music writing.

From 1903 on he was editor and editor for the Reclam publishing house and published countless opera text booklets, for which he wrote the introductory texts. Reclam's opera guide , written by Georg Richard Kruse, was one of the most widely used opera guides. In 1905 Kruse founded the "Society for the Preservation of the Lessing House", from which the Lessing Museum in 1908 at Brüderstraße 13 in Berlin-Mitte emerged . There he gave lectures on music history, had poetry readings and recitation evenings and gave music evenings in the style of the salons of the 19th century, in which well-known but also young, as yet unknown artists of his time took part.

Kruse's tombstone in the Lichterfelde park cemetery

In addition to the biographical work, the editing of opera texts and the writing of various musical essays, the Lessing Museum assumed an ever greater importance for Kruse's work - he was constantly striving to maintain and expand the collection. For a time, the museum also became the seat of the Lessing University in Berlin and Kruse in 1913/14 its director. After handing over the management of the Lessing University to Ludwig Lewin , Kruse mainly organized musical events in the museum. In addition, his passionate collecting in relation to everything that had to do with the genre of game opera gave him immense knowledge over the years, which often made him the contact point of many of his contemporaries, which ultimately resulted in a large number of autographs in his possession originated. In 1936 the Lessing Museum was closed by the National Socialists, who justified their approach by saying that many Jewish artists were members of the association or performed there as artists. Georg Richard Kruse then received an honorary salary from the city, but the exhibits were distributed to various museums in Berlin and also to private individuals: The collection was thus torn apart. In 1941 Kruse decided to hand over his Lortzing collection and his private archive to the Lippische Landesbibliothek Detmold , where they were incorporated into the inventory. After his death in 1944, almost his entire estate went to Detmold with the arrangements for piano reductions and the Reclam libretto collection .

Georg Richard Kruse died in February 1944 at the age of 88 in Berlin. He was buried in the Parkfriedhof Lichterfelde (grave location: Urnenhain I-70). In 1984 the Berlin Senate decided to dedicate the last resting place of Georg Richard Kruse as an honorary grave for the State of Berlin for twenty years . After this deadline, the Senate decided in November 2005 not to extend the dedication.

Publications (selection)

  • Albert Lortzing. Famous musician. Pictures of life and character along with an introduction to the works of the masters. Volume VII. Berlin, Harmonie, 1899.
  • Albert Lortzing. Collected letters. With a portrait supplement and a facsimile of the oldest existing document from Lortzing. Edited by Georg Richard Kruse. New edition, around 82 letters probably. Verlag Bosse Regensburg 1913 XII, 301 S. Deutsche Musikbücherei; Vol. 6.
  • Otto Nicolai. An artist's life. Publishing house Berlin – Vienna, Berlin 1911.

literature

  • Franz Brümmer: Lexicon of the German poets of the 19th century . Volume IV, 1911/1
  • Article "Kruse, Georg Richard". In: Hugo Riemanns Musik-Lexikon , Berlin 1929, p. 964
  • Arno Lubos , History of the Literature of Silesia , Vol. 2, Würzburg 1967, p. 49.
  • Willi Schramm: Georg Richard Kruse - the faithful Eckhard Lortzingscher art . In: Lippische Staatszeitung . Volume 13, No. 267, September 29, 1941
  • East German Memorial Days 1994 , p. 46ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The house opened in 1891 and demolished in 1961, in which opera and theater were initially presented in German, was later renamed the Garrick Theater, as such it can be found in the English language Wikipedia.
  2. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin tombs . Haude & Spener, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-7759-0476-6 , p. 613.
  3. ^ Template - for information - honorary graves of the State of Berlin . Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 15/4601 of December 27, 2005, pp. 4–5. Retrieved November 19, 2019.