Gerhard Maasz

Gerhard Maasz (born February 9, 1906 in Hamburg ; † April 27, 1984 in Ronco sopra Ascona ) was a German composer and conductor .

life and work

Gerhard Maasz, son of a violinist, studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Stephan Krehl and Paul Graener , among others , then worked as a solo coach and Kapellmeister in Osnabrück and Braunschweig, and from 1929 to 1936 as Kapellmeister at the RS Hamburg . As a member of the NSDAP (May 1933 NSBO ) he was music advisor in the main music department in the cultural office of the Reich Youth Leadership in Berlin from 1936 to 1938 . For the Hitler Youth (regular leader in 1943) he composed various choral pieces, cantatas and festival music. From 1938 to 1945 he directed the Gau Württemberg-Hohenzollern regional orchestra in Stuttgart.

After the end of the war on the "black list" of the US military government, he worked as Kapellmeister at the Tanzbühne Hamburg and from 1950 as a musical clerk at the NWDR Hamburg . In 1965 he moved to Ronco sopra Ascona. For many years he led the international Bach Week in the Swiss national education center in Herzberg .

Gerhard Maasz created numerous works for various chamber music ensembles, drama music and choral works with orchestra.

A composition competition initiated by him led to the Gerhard Maasz Prize in 1984, which the GEMA Foundation has administered since 1999. Maasz (1978 recipient of the Johannes Brahms Medal ) left behind an extensive collection of Brahms original manuscripts after his death.

literature

• Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945 , CD-Rom-Lexikon, Kiel 2004, p. 4386ff.
• Erich Valentin :  Maasz, Gerhard. In: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): The music in past and present (MGG). First edition, Volume 8 (Laaf - Meytus). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 1960, DNB 550439609 , Sp. 1378–1379 (= Digital Library Volume 60, pp. 48464–48467)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Honor for Wolfram Buchenberg on chor.com
2. ↑ Biography of G. Maasz, ticinarte.ch  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.