Gerd Albrecht

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Gerd Albrecht (1996 in Hamburg)

Gerd Albrecht (born July 19, 1935 in Essen , † February 2, 2014 in Berlin ) was a German conductor .

Life

Gerd Albrecht was born in Essen in 1935 as the son of the musicologist Hans Albrecht (1902–1961) and a pianist. After studying in Kiel and Hamburg with Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg , Gerd Albrecht won first prize at the Concours international de jeunes chefs d'orchestre de Besançon at the age of 22 . He did not opt ​​for the quick career path, but began in 1958 as an assistant at the Stuttgart Opera . In 1961, however, he was already 1st Kapellmeister in Mainz and in 1963 Germany's youngest General Music Director (GMD) in Lübeck . In 1966 he went to Kassel as GMD for six years and introduced explanatory concerts for children and young people. In 1972 he took over the musical direction of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin as permanent conductor . From 1975 to 1980 he directed the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich , after which he worked as a freelancer for eight years in the world's most important music centers.

From 1988 to 1997 Albrecht was general music director of the Hamburg State Opera and the Philharmonic State Orchestra in Hamburg. From 1993 to 1996 he was the first foreigner chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic in Prague , where there was considerable tension. In 1998 he directed the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen . He also directed the Federal Youth Orchestra .

Albrecht's main focus was on the music of the Romantic era, although he also performed rarely performed works from this era. Many of his numerous recordings have been awarded prizes. In addition, he campaigned intensively for new music , also on television with his talk concerts . During his time in Hamburg, but often not with him as conductor, works by Wolfgang Fortner , György Ligeti , Wolfgang Rihm , Hans Werner Henze and Aribert Reimann were premiered, as well as Alfred Schnittke's Historia by D. Johannes Faustus , Alexander Zemlinsky's Der König Kandaules , Rolf Liebermann's acquittal for Medea and Helmut Lachenmann's girl with the sulfur sticks . He commissioned works a. a. to Krzysztof Penderecki . He performed works by Hans Krása , Viktor Ullmann and Erwin Schulhoff , which had been ostracized by National Socialism, and invited Robert Wilson to stage Wagner's Parsifal in Hamburg .

Albrecht was very committed to getting young people excited about music; He explained and conducted in numerous television programs in front of young audiences. In 1974 he received the Adolf Grimme Prize for this . In the “Classic for Children” series, he explained classic works to children such as Die Moldau , Peter and the Wolf or The Sorcerer's Apprentice .

In 1989 Albrecht founded the Hamburg Youth Music Foundation and Sounding Museums in Hamburg and Berlin. In 1984 he was awarded the German Critics' Prize. Albrecht had been a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg since 1994 .

Gerd Albrecht died in February 2014 after a long illness. He is buried in Burgenland.

Awards

Web links

Commons : Gerd Albrecht  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerd Albrecht in the Munzinger archive , accessed on February 3, 2014 ( beginning of article freely available)
  2. ↑ Gerd Albrecht had an "eminent joy in discovery". In: Deutschlandfunk . February 3, 2014, accessed February 3, 2014.
  3. ↑ Verena Fischer-Zernin, Matthias Gretschel: Gerd Albrecht - one who always stuck to youth. In: Welt Online . February 3, 2014 (obituary), accessed February 3, 2014.
  4. ^ Conductor Gerd Albrecht is dead. In: Zeit Online . February 3, 2014, accessed February 3, 2014.
  5. ^ John Rockwell: Czech Philharmonic Faces Perilous Times In Dividing Country. In: New York Times. December 30, 1992, accessed February 3, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Christian Wildhagen: What everyone has to pack and carry away. In: FAZ.net . February 3, 2014, accessed February 3, 2014.
  7. ↑ Conductor Gerd Albrecht is dead. In: derStandard.at . February 3, 2014, accessed February 4, 2014.
  8. ^ Conductor Gerd Albrecht has died. In: Stern.de . 3rd February 2014.
  9. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
  10. ^ Gerd Albrecht received high honors from the State of Vienna. In: City Hall correspondence of the City of Vienna. April 9, 2002 (accessed May 28, 2010)
personal data
SURNAME Albrecht, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH 2nd February 2014
Place of death Berlin