Gustav Sasse

Gustav Sasse (born July 25, 1904 in Lüneburg , † March 3, 1969 in Hanover ) was a German organist and conductor .

Life

Gustav Sasse played the violin and organ at the Johanneum in Lüneburg until he finished school . He decided on the organ as the main instrument and studied at the State Academy for Church and School Music in Berlin-Charlottenburg . Together with his college friend Gerhard Gregor he passed the church musician exam in 1928; Both of them played Edvard Grieg's A minor concerto as a concert finale in the piano category , and they alternately acted as conductors of the orchestra. After graduating, he went to Hanover as a church musician at the Luther Church .

Good friends with Dr. Elinor von der Heyde-Dohrn, who later became the Brunswick cathedral organist, repeatedly brought this “quarter Jew” to Hanover during the Third Reich, first as a thoroughbass accompanist and then as a guest organist, thereby circumventing her performance ban, which made him indignant from the Nazi regime brought in.

Shortly before the Second World War , Gustav Sasse was appointed city ​​cantor to the three main Hanover churches of St. Aegidien , St. Crucis and the Marktkirche . The Marktkirche remained until its destruction in 1943 and after its reconstruction in 1952 the home of his church music work until 1965. In 1949, Sasse stepped in as a conductor in the theater in the gallery building in Herrenhausen, in which he performed the first act of Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte for the briefly indisposed Franz Konwitschny conducted without blame or blame. With the Hanover Bach Choir , which he founded , he achieved church music performances of supraregional importance and after its new building in 1953, he set up the organ music every evening at the Marktkirchen organ. In 3500 one-hour organ concerts, works from the Renaissance to the modern were played, with the focus on the composers Bach and Reger . In 1962 Gustav Sasse was awarded the title of church music director .

Grave of Gustav Sasse and Erika, née Hoffmann, in the New St. Nikolai Cemetery in the northern part of Hanover

As an organ teacher, he taught a large number of students, including the church musicians Adolf Sörensen, Oskar Gottlieb Blarr , Götz Wiese, Detlef Schmidt, Wolfgang Besler, Edgar Rauschel, Friedrich-Wilhelm Tebbe and Michael von Troschke. As a composer, Sasse wrote a new motet for every Sunday, which was then brought to the audience by the Stadtkantorei. Together with Ludwig Doormann, he wrote and revised the sentences for the chorale book for the organists, which Christhard Mahrenholz published in 1949 for the Protestant church hymn book.

Karl Richter judged Gustav Sasse: "I never understood why Gustav Sasse invited me as a guest organist, Sasse played better than me, a master of the royal instrument!"