Helmut König (music editor)

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Helmut König (born April 15, 1930 in Bremen ) is a German music editor and songwriter; from 1968 to 2001 he was artistic director of the independent label THOROFON .

life and work

From 1950 to 1955, Helmut König studied German language and literature and history in Kiel and Göttingen for teaching at secondary schools. He then worked as a publishing assistant in Bad Godesberger Voggenreiter Verlag , while studying at the University of Bonn at the same time. In 1957 he continued his studies in Göttingen with Wolfgang Kayser , Karl Otto Conrady , Karl Bertau , Alfred Heuss , Percy Ernst Schramm a . a. away. He also studied philosophy, education and choral conducting. In the context of development aid , he worked from 1961 to 1965 as a lecturer at the University of Calcutta , posted by the German Academic Foreign Service . In 1964 he founded the German Department at the Sanskrit College there. König worked from 1966 to 1968 as a trainee lawyer at the Göttingen study seminar and until 1990 as a grammar school teacher at various grammar schools in Hesse and Lower Saxony.

During his work in India, König came into contact with sound film and tape technology . When he returned to the FRG in 1966, the German songwriting scene was blossoming , for example at the Waldeck Chanson Festival in the Hunsrück. König, who wrote songs and set poems to music under his youth alliance name helm , hired as a sound engineer at the Burg Waldeck Working Group and was able to document many of the festival concerts on tape (basis of a 10-CD box released in 2008). Together with his wife Helga and the Voggenreiter Verlag, Helmut König founded the record label xenophon . Since both Königs were now working as teachers, recording sessions took place in orphaned classrooms during the holiday season. Reinhard Mey , Hannes Wader , Schobert & Black , Walter Hedemann and Christof Stählin were among the artists whom the Königs helped make their very first recordings . It appeared EP 's, LPs and compilations .

Due to different business mentalities , the Königs left the xenophon label entirely to Voggenreiter-Verlag (which soon sold it to the major label Intercord ).

1968 became king instead a small bündisches record label and founded it together with friends from church youth 's own record company THOROFON KG, based in Darmstadt and in 1974 in the town of Wedemark . As artistic director, he wanted to offer young, as yet unknown artists a platform (among others, he published Siegfried Fink , Michael Tröster, the North German Figural Choir and the Orlando di Lasso Ensemble ) and promote contemporary music (including first recordings by Bertold Hummel , Alfred Schnittke and Aaron Copland ) and publish unjustly forgotten works. Among other things, he published the world's first recording of Max Reger's entire piano work (he received a personal ECHO for the “editorial work” ) and the world premiere of the Brecht / Weill work The Ocean Flight . His complete edition of Prince Louis Ferdinand's work received particular attention with the premiere of Op. 13, for which he first had to create the score from the sources. In addition, König published first recordings by Boris Blacher , Hugo Distler and Gerhard Rosenfeld as well as first recordings of the late choral compositions and masses by Jan Dismas Zelenka . In addition, songs related to the youth movement, folklore and chanson have been published, for example by Peter Rohland and Hai & Topsy . König and THOROFON have received numerous awards for their editions, including the German Record Critics' Prize and the ECHO Klassik (or its predecessor, the German Record Prize ), as well as the Leopold in 2007 . In 2001 he sold his music label to BELLA MUSICA.

König wrote and set numerous songs to music, for example the ring is closed and the hymn Lord God, enter your peace . Since 1985 he has been a jury member at various choir competitions. In 1997 he was appointed to the music advisory board of the German National Library . In 1995 he was elected spokesman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and was appointed to the board of the German national group of IFPI from 1997 to 2003. He is a member of the Burg Waldeck working group .

Helmut König is married, has two children and lives in Wedemark.

Publications

In addition to his label publications, König wrote essays and specialist articles on music for magazines. From 1953 he worked alongside Dieter Dorn and Hans Schwark and from 1962 was co-editor of the three-volume collection of songs Der Turm (founded by Konrad Schilling and published as initiator from 1952) , which was published by Voggenreiter Verlag (Bad Godesberg). Initially, from 1956, Turm A (parts 1–5, edited by Konrad Schilling), from 1962, Turm A (co-editor Helmut König) and Tower B (parts 6–11, co-editors Helmut König and Herbert Hoss) and in 1966 that of Konrad Schilling, Helmut König and Herbert Hoss published volume The sloping tower . He was co-editor of the songbooks Der Regenpfeifer (1958) and, together with Paul Rode, of Walter Scherf's songs . More publishments:

  • Red stars glow. Songs in the Service of Sovietization . Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1955
  • Chanson 67. Chansons and folklore . Xenophon in Voggenreiter-Verlag, Bad Godesberg 1968
  • Rumpelstiltskin . Ballet music for a narrator and orchestra. Text: Helmut König. Music: Herbert Baumann , CD and booklet, Wedemark 2000
  • Singing in the frets - The Zupfgeigenhansl and his successors . PDF
  • About what is special about singing in the federal states. In: Gerhard Neudorf (editor): Idea and movement. Issue 82 / 83–89, 2008–2010, ISSN  1435-8883 , ( PDF file; 0.3 MB ).
  • Tejo's songs . Editors: Helmut König and Paul Rode. Publishing house of the youth movement, Berlin 2010.
  • pitters songs. The songs of Peter Rohland . (Editor). Lyrics and sheet music, including DVD. Baunach 2014. ISBN 978-3-88778-407-2 .
  • tejo, our ship and the Young properties 1945-1949 . (Editor). Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 2016, ISBN 978-3-88778-448-5 .
  • helms songs. The songs of Helmut König . Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 2018, ISBN 978-3-88778-546-8 .

literature

  • Roland Eckert (Ed.): The ring is closed, the evening wind is blowing. Festschrift for Helmut (helm) König . Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-942476-07-2

Quote

“He is involved in the activities of the Waldeck Festival . What is initially only technical help, because helm König is far superior to the festival organizers in terms of recording technology, will soon become an indispensable contribution. We owe the fact that after decades the Waldeck program is still available to the technician and production manager helm König. "

- Klaus Wettig

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ .
  2. ↑ Xenophon. Retrieved July 18, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Holger Saarmann - News. Retrieved July 18, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Klaus Wettig : Always on a new track. helm König for the 80th In: The ring is closed, the evening wind blows . Berlin 2010
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Herbst (Ed.): Who is who in the hymnal? . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-50323-7
  6. ↑ For example in Guitar & Lute , No. 6-1990. ISSN  0172-9683
  7. ↑ Konrad Schilling: The tower. Idea - claim - effect - result . In: The ring is closed, the evening wind blows
  8. ↑ tejos songs . Publishing house of the youth movement, Berlin 2010.
  9. ↑ In: Roland Eckert (Ed.): The ring is closed, the evening wind blows. Festschrift for Helmut (helm) König . Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2010, p. 28
personal data
SURNAME King, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German songwriter and music editor
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen