Heinz Tiessen

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Heinz Tiessen (actually Richard Gustav Heinrich Tiessen ; born April 10, 1887 in Königsberg , † November 29, 1971 in West Berlin ) was a German composer , conductor and music teacher.

Life

Heinz Tiessen was the son of a court assistant and spent his childhood in Bartenstein . At his father's request, he was to pursue a career as a lawyer. In 1905 he began to study law at Berlin University, but switched to philosophy after just one semester and became an admirer of Georg Simmel . At the same time, he studied composition with Philipp Rüfer , theory with Wilhelm Klatte and conducting with Arno Kleffel at the Stern Conservatory .

In 1913 and 1914, Tiessen's two symphonies were successfully premiered. From that point on he only devoted himself to music. One of his most important sponsors in the next few years was Richard Strauss , who was admired by Tiessen and who placed him in 1917 as a répétiteur at the Royal Opera in Berlin . In addition, Tiessen worked as a music critic. From 1918 to 1921 he was the theater conductor of the Freie Volksbühne , and from 1920 to 1922 he was also the conductor of the “Academic Orchestra Association” at the university. Since 1921 Tiessen was involved in the left-wing intellectual November group , later he was a founding member of the International Society for New Music . At the height of his fame in 1925 he was appointed composition teacher at the Berlin Conservatory .

Tiessen, who also worked with socialist workers' choirs, was hostile to the burgeoning National Socialism. Although he was able to continue teaching after 1933 until 1945, his works were considered undesirable after Adolf Hitler's takeover and disappeared from the repertoire. During these years, Tiessen's compositional work almost came to a standstill. Tiessen was a reviewer (censor) for the Reichsmusikprüfstelle of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda .

After the Second World War, Tiessen headed the municipal (formerly Stern'sche) conservatory from 1946 to 1949 and the department for composition and theory at the Berlin Conservatory from 1949 to 1955, before retiring to his private life and composing again. However, he could no longer achieve the productivity of his earlier years. The performance tradition of his works was broken by National Socialism, so that only a few interpreters stood up for him. When Heinz Tiessen died in 1971 after a long illness, he was an almost forgotten composer. Only towards the end of the 20th century did new interest in his music arise.

Tiessen had been married to the pianist Anneliese Schier for the second time since 1944; his most famous students were Eduard Erdmann , Josef Tal , Erik Bergman and Sergiu Celibidache .

Throughout his life, the composer had a passion for birdsong , especially that of blackbirds . He began to conduct systematic research into the structure of the chants. Tiessen summarized his experiences in the 1953 book " Music of Nature ". As early as 1915 he had put it into practice in his Septet Op. 20, which processed various blackbird calls, which made him a forerunner of Olivier Messiaen in this regard .

Heinz Tiessen was buried in the Zehlendorf forest cemetery in Berlin.

Audio language

Tiessen is one of the main representatives of musical expressionism in Germany. His early works opp. 1-16 are of the late romantic style, show above all the influence of Richard Strauss and were later regarded by the composer as not yet typical of his style. Tiessen achieved artistic independence with Symphony No. 2 Op. 17 “ Die and Become! ". In this and the following works, tonality is not given up, but it is loosened up and developed further to polytonality. At the same time a striving for linear polyphonic voice guidance becomes noticeable. The compositions created during the Weimar Republic exacerbate these tendencies and occasionally touch atonality . In terms of quantity, this creative phase is dominated by stage music, in which Tiessen's preference for distinctive and gestural themes comes into play. Perhaps the most important of these works is the dance drama “ Salambo ”. In the post-war period, Tiessen no longer reacted productively to the artistic upheavals of that time, but remained true to his personal style.

Tiessen summarized his artistic goals in 1911 as follows: “ The goal of art is classicism. [...] The task of the future is to win over the achievements of Neo-Romanticism, which are still an end in themselves, for the design of a new, modern classicism. "

Honors

Works (selection)

Stage works

Vocal music

  • " A Spring Mystery ", oratorio for choir, solos and orchestra op. 36
  • " Aufmarsch ", cantata for choir, wind orchestra and speaker op. 40 (1931)
  • " Die Amsel ", lyrical rhapsody for soprano and orchestra op. 63 (after Max Dauthendey )
  • Songs for voice and piano

Orchestral music

  • " Ein Ibsenfeier " op. 7, symphonic poem (1909)
  • Symphony No. 1 in C major, op.15 (1911)
  • Symphony No. 2 in F minor, Op. 17 " Die and Become! " (1912)
  • Rondo in G major op. 21 for orchestra
  • A love song op.25. Idyll for orchestra
  • " Totentanz-Suite " op. 29 for violin and orchestra (1921)
  • " Hamlet-Suite " op. 30 (1921, based on the music for " Hamlet ")
  • Music for string orchestra op.32a
  • " Prelude to a revolutionary drama " op. 33 (1926, based on the music for " Masse Mensch ")
  • Salambo-Suite op.34a
  • From my theater portfolio II op. 39. Four orchestral pieces (around 1928)
  • Serious hymn op. 50 for wind orchestra
  • Concert Variations for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 60 (1961)

Chamber music

  • " Amsel-Septett " for flute, clarinet, horn, 2 violins, viola and violoncello in G major op. 20 (1915)
  • String quintet op.32 (1920)
  • Duo sonata for violin and piano op.35 (1925)
  • Divertimento for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon op.51 (1956)
  • Music for viola with organ op.59 (1964)

Piano and organ music

  • Sonata for piano in C major op.12 (1910)
  • Nature trilogy ( On the summit of the dead dune - On the Curonian Lagoon - Night by the Sea ) for piano op.18 (1913)
  • 5 piano pieces op.21 (~ 1915) (premiered on May 11, 1916 by Eduard Erdmann , then withdrawn)
  • 3 piano pieces op.31 (1923)
  • 6 piano pieces op.37 (1929)
  • Passacaglia and Fugue for Organ op.46 (1939)
  • 5 piano pieces op.52 (1950)

Fonts

  • " On the history of recent music " (1928)
  • " Music of Nature - About the song of the birds, especially the tonal language and form of the blackbird song " (1953)
  • Way of a composer . Academy of Arts / Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1962.
  • various essays, e.g. B .: Choral music for workers , in: Die Kunstgemeinde. Bulletin of the art community of the Kreuzberg district. , Volume 6, No. 2, February 1930, pp. 13-14.
  • and: Tonkunst in the context of the Schauspielbühne , in: Volksbühne. Zeitschrift für sociale Kunstpflege , vol. 2 1921/22, no. 2, pp. 60–62.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harry Waibel : Servants of many masters. Former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , pp. 341–342.
  2. ↑ Dr. Erwin Kroll: Music at the 700th anniversary. (pdf; 9.8 MB) In: The Ostpreußenblatt. June 23, 1955, p. 5 , accessed on April 13, 2012 (scan of issue 23 vol. 6): “... contained works by the two most famous East Prussian composers of our time, namely Heinz Tiessen's' Nature Trilogy '(with the sentences' On the summit of the dead dune ',' Am Kurischen Haff 'and' Nacht am Meer ') and Otto Besch's one-movement sonata ... "
  3. ↑ https://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manuscripts/sz/tiessen-heinz/

Documents

literature

Josef Tal : In memoriam, in: For Heinz Tiessen 1887-1971, series of publications by the Akademie der Künste Berlin (13), pp.57-62

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Tiessen, Heinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tiessen, Richard Gustav Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, conductor and music teacher
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1971
Place of death Berlin