Heinrich Bender (conductor)

Heinrich Bender (around 1980)

Heinrich Bender , actually Heinrich Maul , (born May 11, 1925 in Saarbrücken , † May 24, 2016 in  Munich ) was a German conductor, pianist and music teacher. In the more recent history of interpretation he went down primarily as the Bavarian Staatskapellmeister, first conductor at the Munich National Theater and head of the studio of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

Life and way

Heinrich Bender came from Saarbrücken, where his father was a violist in the municipal orchestra. He grew up in a middle-class atmosphere that was friendly to education and the muses, learned to play the piano at an early age, took part in house and chamber concerts as a child and performed solo piano recitals at the age of ten. At the Ludwigsgymnasium in Saarbrücken, he completed the so-called secondary school diploma in 1943 and then did military service. While attending school, he had received lessons in piano and harmony from Heinz Bongartz , then General Music Director of the Saarbrücken City Theater.

After the war ended, Bender found work in a machine factory after finishing school. In 1946 he got his first job as a répétiteur at the Stadttheater Saarbrücken. A year later he was able to continue his studies with Bongartz, who in the meantime had become a professor at the Leipzig University of Music as head of the conducting class. In addition to his studies in all subjects relevant for a conductor, he acquired extensive knowledge of symphonic and operatic practice with Bongartz.

After studying with Bongartz, he moved to the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where he studied composition with Boris Blacher , piano with Gerhard Puchelt and conducting with Felix Lederer . In autumn 1949 he took up his first engagement as a conductor (répétiteur with a conducting obligation) at the Landestheater Coburg. As an opera conductor at a multi-discipline ensemble theater, he was able to develop an extensive repertoire and establish contacts with singers, orchestral musicians, fellow conductors and theater professionals of all kinds. At the same time he was studying musicology at the University of Erlangen.

In 1955 he was engaged as a musical assistant at the Bayreuth Festival , where he worked for years with the Wagner brothers and important conductors such as Knappertsbusch , Keilberth and Cluytens . In 1957 he went to the Stadttheater Hagen / Westf. As 1st Kapellmeister. In 1959 he was appointed to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich at the instigation of Joseph Keilberth. There he advanced to the position of Bavarian Staatskapellmeister. Until the end of his career, Bender remained active in the Bavarian capital, in fact as permanent first conductor alongside the GMD Joseph Keilberth , Wolfgang Sawallisch and Zubin Mehta . At the same time he worked as an opera and concert conductor, as a song pianist and at home and abroad, as a guest a. a. at the Berlin State Opera as well as at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (“Salome”) and at the Vienna State Opera (“Die Entführung aus dem Serail”, “La Cenerentola”, “Lulu”). In 1961 he directed the world premiere of Hans Werner Henze's “Elegy for Young Lovers” at the Schwetzingen Festival . At the Bavarian State Opera he directed a. a. the German premiere of the burlesque-comic opera “Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali” by Gaetano Donizetti (German: “Viva la Mamma”). He did not take up an offer to move to Dresden as general music director after a guest performance at the Semperoper , as it was tied to acceptance of GDR citizenship. In 1969 he took over the position of chief conductor of the German repertoire at the Canadian Opera Company , where he directed German productions with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra up to and including 1976. For three decades since 1969 he was also the director of the studio of the Bavarian State Opera and conducted 90 opera performances with its master students.

Heinrich Bender died on May 24, 2016 in Munich.

Position and Effect

Heinrich Bender oversaw a repertoire of works without limits. Critics described him as one of the “last representatives of a dying species” (Marcel Prawy) - the universally educated, masterly interpreting, and every task ad hoc perfectly grown universalist. As an orchestra conductor in Munich, Bender was almost a legend until the 1990s. The effects of his educational work as head of the Munich opera studio can hardly be measured: Most of the approximately 200 graduates of this opera school achieved careers at German state theaters and European opera houses. Bender's most successful students include Agnes Baltsa , Roland Bracht, Kevin Conners, Isoldé Elchlepp , Daphne Evangelatos, Marcus Goritzki, Ingrid Haubold, Markus Hollop, Andreas Kohn , Robert Künzli, Petra Lang, Juan José Lopera, Ralf Lukas, Georg Paucker, Alfred Reiter , Christoph Stephinger, Rüdiger Trebes, Andrea Trauboth, Violeta Urmana, Deon van der Walt, Kobie van Rensburg , Irmgard Vilsmaier , Roland Wagenführer, Yaron Windmüller.

Heinrich Bender's music productions are inadequately published on sound carriers, but are documented in various ways in radio archives. The Hamburg Archive for Singing Art has been publishing recordings of opera performances under Bender's direction since 2010.

Testimonies

• Heinrich Bender: A Guardian Angel's Hand - The Trace of My Earth Days . Self-published in Munich 2010.

Audio documents

• Music excerpts from the biography / works by Wagner, R. Strauss, Debussy, Prokofiev, Hindemith, Hartmann, Henze, H.Bender + "Barbershop" songs / CD appendix to the printed work (see above)
• Recital Nicolai Gedda: Arias + Scenes from Opera / Bavarian State Orchestra / German Record Award (EMI Electrola)
• Song recital Astrid Varnay / Wagner, Dvořák, Respighi (MYTO)
• Portrait edition Karl Christian Kohn: Gluck, Wagner, Mussorgskij, Wolf-Ferrari, Orff / Monteverdi, Henze (1962–1990) Hamburg archive
• Portrait-Edition Thomas Tipton: Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini (1965–1977) Hamburg archive
• Hans Werner Henze / Elegy for young lovers (1961) Hamburg archive
• Christoph Willibald Gluck / The Pilgrims of Mecca (1962) Hamburg Archive
• Giuseppe Verdi / Don Carlos (1965) / Hamburg Archive
• Gaetano Donizetti / Viva la Mamma (Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali / Dt. EA 1969) Hamburg archive
• Gaetano Donizetti / Anna Bolena (1967) Hamburg Archive

Honors

• Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon 1993
• Bavarian Order of Merit 1997

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Bender  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Heinrich Bender in the catalog of the German National Library
• Heinrich Bender on his 80th birthday, Bavarian State Opera, Munich

Individual evidence

1. ^ Bayerischer Rundfunk: conductor, pianist and music teacher: Heinrich Bender died | BR classic. In: www.br-klassik.de. Accessed June 2, 2016 (German).