Hans Weisbach

Hans Edgar Weisbach (born July 19, 1885 in Glogau , Silesia , † April 23, 1961 in Wuppertal ) was a German conductor and pianist .

Live and act

Weisbach came from a family of soldiers. From the age of seven he received both piano and violin lessons and appeared at various chamber concerts as a pupil . After graduating from high school, he studied violin at the Academy of Music in Berlin, first with Joseph Joachim and Andreas Moser , then piano with Ernst Rudorff and Georg von Petersenn, and finally conducting with Robert Hausmann . He also took courses in philosophy and musicology .

In 1908 Weisbach moved to Munich, where he worked at the court theater there, now the Bavarian State Opera under Felix Mottl, as a volunteer conductor and at the same time attended other lectures at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . Three years later he moved to Frankfurt, where he worked as a pianist and chamber musician at his own concerts and for the Frankfurt Museum Society, and was also the second conductor of the “Rühlschen Oratorienverein”. After a short episode in Worms , where he took over the management of the concert company in 1913, and in Wiesbaden, as well as an interruption due to the war, he was elected city music director of the Philharmonic Orchestra in Hagen / Westphalia in 1919 , where he premiered Paul Graener's Concerto for Piano in 1926 and orchestra (op. 72) with Käthe Heinemann as soloist. In Hagen, Weisbach played a key role in the fact that the only half-finished and damaged town hall was completed and the first Hagen Music Festival could take place in 1923. In addition to this activity, he also headed the Barmen concert company from 1924 .

Finally, in 1926, after several successful appearances as a guest conductor, he was appointed to succeed Georg Schnéevoigt as municipal general music director in Düsseldorf . His first major appearance with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra and a demanding program as part of the opening ceremony of the great “Exhibition for Health Care, Social Care and Physical Exercise” ( GeSoLei ) was a highly regarded success. In the period that followed, in addition to the seasonal program, he twice directed the Niederrheinische Musikfest as well as numerous world premieres and premieres such as the “Missa Symphonica” for mixed choir, solos, orchestra and organ op. 36 and the “Requiem” by Lothar Windsperger , the “Marianische Antiphon " for soli, organ choir and orchestra by Wolfgang Fortner and " Die Weihe der Nacht " by himself as world premieres as well as " King David " by Arthur Honegger , the" Stabat mater "op. 53 by Karol Szymanowski and " Hymnus " by Heinz Schubert as German premieres.

With a last concert on 8./9. In February 1933, Weismann ended his activity in Düsseldorf and moved to Leipzig, where he took over the direction of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, today's MDR Symphony Orchestra , until 1939 . He then moved to Vienna during the difficult war years . Here Weisbach directed the Wiener Symphoniker until 1944 , an orchestra in which there has been a disproportionately large number of party members and candidates for party membership since the German takeover. There he was responsible, among other things, for the so-called Kraft-durch-Freude concerts , for appearances on the Reichsrundfunk and for the performance of the major Viennese concert series before the orchestra was shut down in August 1944 - already significantly reduced in terms of personnel due to conscription for military service.

After going through a denazification process - he had been a member of the NSDAP since 1937 - he was finally appointed city music director in Wuppertal in 1947 , where he also ended his career.

Weisbach was regarded throughout his life as an internationally recognized expert and interpreter of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach , which he repeatedly performed in numerous performances (including with the London Symphony Orchestra ). In recognition of his life's work and his musical development years in Hagen and Wuppertal, Hans Weisbach received the von der Heydt Culture Prize and the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955 .

literature

• Weisbach, Hans . In: John L. Holmes: Conductors on Record. Greenwood Press, Westport 1982, ISBN 0-575-02781-9 , pp. 708-709.
• Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945 . CD-ROM Lexicon, Kiel 2004, p. 7628 ff.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Weisbach in the catalog of the German National Library
• Hans Weisbach at Bach Cantatas (English)
• Hans Weisbach's curriculum vitae in the chronicle of the Städtischen Musikverein zu Düsseldorf

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 . CD-ROM Lexicon, Kiel 2004, p. 7628.