Harald Heilmann

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Harald Heilmann (born April 9, 1924 in Aue (Saxony) ; † November 20, 2018 ) was a German composer.

Life

After graduating from high school in 1942, he did military service. As a prisoner of war in the Red Army , he was interned in Auschwitz , where he had to dismantle railroad tracks. After his release from captivity in September 1945, he returned to his home town of Schwarzenberg / Erzgeb. back. Two months later he joined the CDU. From 1946 Heilmann studied composition (with Wilhelm Weismann ), piano (with Kurt Dippner ) and conducting (with Egon Bölsche ) at the "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" University of Music and Theater in Leipzig . Soon after Heilmann became head of the CDU's university operating group at the Leipzig University of Music, he was de-registered in 1949 by his rector Rudolf Fischer “because of incompetence”. Since Fischer was generally regarded as a communist loyal to the line, Heilmann suspected political reasons behind this due to his CDU engagement and had his teachers Weismann, Dippner and Bölsche attest to his musical competence. As a result, Fischer had to partially withdraw the de-registration. Heilmann was allowed to continue studying - but no longer composition, piano and conducting, but only music theory. After receiving his exams in this subject in 1950, Heilmann applied to study composition with Hanns Eisler at the East Berlin Academy of the Arts . He was accepted and then studied from 1950 to 1952 in the master class of the prominent Schoenberg student. During his student days he was required to lead an FDGB orchestra. Mediated by Eisler, he also received a position as a theory teacher at the German University of Music. As a result of political difficulties, which, according to Heilmann, were in turn connected with his CDU membership, he lost this position again in 1952; and after accidentally damaging a lamp with a baton while conducting a Stalin cantata in the same year, he was insulted as a saboteur and class enemy. Fearing imprisonment, he fled the GDR shortly afterwards and moved to the Federal Republic of Germany . Here he continued his composition studies with Frank Martin in Cologne . He then became a lecturer at SMV Heidelberg , Merseburger Verlag, and Schultheiss Verlag. He has been a freelance composer since 1958.

His most important work is the "Small Choral Mass" op. 168 for organ (1996). In addition, he composed a dance - oratorio "The Fall" and numerous works for orchestra, chamber ensemble or soloist.

In 1979 he was co-founder of the music school of the city of Eberbach , of which he was music pedagogical director until 1985.

Harald Heilmann passed away on November 20, 2018.

Honors

literature

  • Daniel Zur Weihen: Composing in the GDR. Institutions, organizations and the first generation of composers until 1961: Analyzes , Böhlau Verlag Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 1999 (including information about Harald Heilmann on 51 of the 538 pages of the book)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald Heilmann said in retrospect 50 years later: “One has always stood up for the ethical concerns of Christianity. That was always my need. To stand up for ethics and to improve humanity a little after this war. […] That doesn't work. ”Quoted in: Daniel Zur Weihen: Composing in the GDR , Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 1999, p. 393.
  2. ^ Daniel Zur Weihen: Composing in the GDR , Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 1999, p. 401
  3. ^ Daniel Zur Weihen: Composing in the GDR , Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 1999, p. 403
  4. ↑ Office of the Federal President

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Heilmann, Harald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Aue (Saxony)
DATE OF DEATH 20th November 2018