Gustav Bumcke

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Gustav Bumcke (born July 18, 1876 in Berlin , † July 4, 1963 in Kleinmachnow ) was a German composer and founder of the first German saxophone orchestra.

Life

After attending secondary school and subsequent years of commercial apprenticeship, Bumcke took composition lessons with Gustav Kulenkampff (1848–1921), Max Bruch and Engelbert Humperdinck , piano with Hugo Rüdel and Otto Neitzel , and trumpet with Julius Koslek (1835–1905). From 1900 to 1902 he was theater music director in Konstanz, Heilbronn and Bayreuth. In 1902 he met Adolphe Sax's son on a trip to Paris . Bumcke brought eight saxophones (instruments with the “beautiful, noble sound”) of all sizes to Berlin and since then has devoted all of his creative power to the classical saxophone in Germany.

From 1903 to 1936 he taught music theory, harmony and composition at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. Due to the lack of good saxophonists, Bumcke played many of his compositions himself and founded her own saxophone class in 1927 at the Stern Conservatory and later at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory , from which Bumcke's daughter Hilde in particular was a German saxophonist under her stage name Ingrid Larssen became famous. In 1933 he reconciled the National Socialist cultural politicians with the saxophone instrument , which could still be used in German dance orchestras.

Together with Sigurd Rascher , Gustav Bumcke is considered a pioneer of the classical saxophone in Germany.

plant

For the musician, pedagogue and saxophonist Bumcke, the saxophone was not a jazz, but an instrument that for him represented the optimal tonal combination of wood and brass instruments in chamber music - in the spirit of its inventor Adolphe Sax. He was already using the saxophone in 1902 in his Great Symphony in E flat major, Op. 15 a. This is followed by more than forty compositions for saxophone in all genres of instrumental music - from sonata to quartet to concerto for saxophone and orchestra. In 1926 Bumcke published the first German-language methodology with his "Saxophone School". In addition, he also wrote a five-volume series of saxophone études (Opus 43).

At the end of the 1920s he founded the first German saxophone orchestra consisting of a sopranino, two soprano saxophones, seven alto saxophones, three tenor saxophones, a baritone saxophone and a bass saxophone. From 1932 Gustav Bumcke appeared with his saxophone quartet in the line-up of Emil Manz (alto saxophone), Ingrid Larssen (alto saxophone), Carl Petzelt (tenor saxophone). Bumcke himself played the baritone saxophone in the quartet. The Berlin Saxophone Quartet soon became part of Berlin's concert life.

From 1950 to 1955, Bumcke was a lecturer in music theory at the German University of Music in East Berlin .

estate

Gustav Bumcke's legal successor is the Berlin publishing house Ries & Erler, which has given all manuscripts and printed music as well as manuscripts and catalog raisonnés to the archive of the Akademie der Künste (Berlin) . Gustav Bumcke's estate was cataloged there and has been accessible to the public ever since.

Fonts

  • Saxophone School . Anton J. Benjamin, Leipzig, 1926
  • The saxophone as an orchestral instrument . In: Musik und Gesellschaft , 8, Henschelverlag, Berlin 1960, pp. 478–479

literature

  • Karl Ventzke , Claus Raumberger, Dietrich Hilkenbach: The saxophones: Contributions to their construction characteristics, function and history . Bochinsky, Bergkirchen 2001, ISBN 978-3-923639-45-8
  • Hans-Jürgen Schaal, Like the plaintive howl of the wind. On the history of the saxophone in classical music . In: Das Orchester , 45, 07/08 1997, pp. 10–15, hjs-jazz.de
  • Jean-Marie Londeix : The History of the Saxophone . In: Sax Info (series of publications by the German Saxophonists Working Group - ARDESA), 7, 16 (1991), pp. 12-23
  • Viola Karl: Gustav Bumcke: Catalog raisonné . Ries & Erler, 1991, ISBN 3-87676-002-X
  • Jean-Louis Chautemps , Daniel Kientzy, Jean-Marie Londeix: Le Saxophone (Musiques et musiciens) . JC Lattès (1987)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Quotation from: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ), November 24, 1935
  2. ^ Karl Ventzke, Claus Raumberger, Dietrich Hilkenbach: The saxophones: Contributions to their construction characteristics, function and history . Bochinsky, Bergkirchen 2001, ISBN 978-3-923639-45-8 , p. 159 ff
  3. ^ Karl Ventzke, Claus Raumberger, Dietrich Hilkenbach: The saxophones: Contributions to their construction characteristics, function and history . Bochinsky, Bergkirchen 2001, ISBN 978-3-923639-45-8 , p. 8
  4. ^ Günter Priesner, Johannes Ernst: European saxophone ensembles at the University of the Arts Berlin 2003 . In: Sax Info (series of publications by the German Saxophonists Working Group - ARDESA), special issue, 2003, p. 2
  5. ^ Karl Ventzke, Claus Raumberger, Dietrich Hilkenbach: The saxophones: Contributions to their construction characteristics, function and history . Bochinsky, Bergkirchen 2001, ISBN 978-3-923639-45-8 , p. 159 ff
personal data
SURNAME Bumcke, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and pioneer of the classical saxophone in Germany
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1963
Place of death Kleinmachnow