Herfrid Kier

Herfrid Kier (born May 6, 1935 in Berlin ) is an Austrian historian and former artistic director of the German subsidiary of the British record company EMI .

Life

As the son of the Austrian international law expert Herbert Kier (1900–1973), he spent his childhood and youth in Berlin , Budweis , Linz / Danube and Graz . After graduating from high school in Graz in 1956, where he also received his music training (horn, piano and music theory) at the Styrian State Conservatory, now the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz , he studied musicology, German, modern history, psychology and art history at the University of Vienna , which Kier at the University of Cologne , where he came as a scholarship holder of the German government, in 1967 with the doctorate to Dr. phil. and the dissertation “ Raphael Georg Kiesewetter 1773-1850. Trailblazer of Musical Historicism ” .

Kier had already worked as a part-time journalist in Vienna and began studying intermittently as a text editor in 1959, his later career at the Electrola and Carl Lindström companies, subsidiaries of the British record company EMI. In 1960 he was entrusted with the management of the press department and remained in this position until 1969. During this time he provided journalistic support and tour support for selected performers in the classical music and cabaret sectors (including Daniel Barenboim , Maria Callas , Georg Kreisler , Topsy Küppers , Yehudi Menuhin , Nathan Milstein , Jacqueline du Pré , Hermann Prey , Helmut Qualtinger , Mstislav Rostropovich , Anneliese Rothenberger , Alexis Weissenberg ) as well as in the field of light music (including Adamo , Beach Boys , Gilbert Becaud , Heino , Howard Carpendale , Marlene Dietrich , Cornelia Froboess , Gitte Haenning ) and, together with Bravo magazine, the organization of the only Beatles tour through Germany in 1966.

In 1969, EMI Electrola set up a marketing department for classical music. Until the beginning of 1989, he worked for the company in the role of head of the repertoire and marketing department for classical music . During this time, he was responsible for over 5,000 recordings, including some newly designed series such as Young Generation of Artists, Musica Praeclassica, Reflexe Stations of European Music, Dacapo, as well as his own series for contemporary music. Since 1969 he was a member of the International Classical Repertoire Committee (ICRC) of the EMI. In 1980 Kier took on the additional role of Classical Marketing Supervisor Central Europe until 1982; after that he was only responsible for the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, since with his appointment as Artistic Director for the Classical Repertoire of the German EMI Society these tasks were also transferred to him in 1982.

The personal focus in the new area of ​​responsibility was his efforts to strengthen and assert young German and Austrian interpreters within the global British media group EMI, including the Cherubini Quartet , the clarinetist Sabine Meyer, the bass Thomas Quasthoff , the cellist Heinrich Schiff , the pianist Christian Zacharias , the violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann and the violist Tabea Zimmermann . In addition, he was also interested in promoting young foreign performers in German productions, including the Cuban guitarist Manuel Barrueco , the American soprano Barbara Bonney and the American tenor Robert Gambill .

In June 1989 he was appointed Director Classical A&R Europe of EMI and Deputy Vice-President Classical A&R Worldwide while retaining responsibility for the artistic production of the German EMI company.He left the company a short time later in 1990 due to differing views and a lack of competence.

After leaving the recording industry, Kier turned to freelance activities. As early as 1989 he became a lecturer at the University of Music and Theater Hamburg for the newly established course in cultural management , in the development of which he had played a decisive role in an expert group of the Federal Ministry of Science and Research since 1985 . From 1992 to 1994 he was also a lecturer in the field of cultural management at the Administration and Business Academy in Cologne.

From 1990 to 2007, Kier held a teaching position at the Musicological Institute of the University of Cologne with a focus on music education in the media and music professions as well as repertoire studies. In 1994/95 he was also given a teaching position at the Institute for Music and Theater Studies at the TU Dresden with lectures and seminars on the subject of "The importance of the media for musicology".

In addition, there were appraisal activities, such as extensive expertise for the qualitative assessment and commercial evaluation of the repertoire of the record company Supraphon for the planned privatization of this Czech state company; Furthermore, expertise for court proceedings in sound carrier issues, as well as advice to interpreters when concluding contracts.

Since 1959 he has been with the art historian Hiltrud Kier , b. Arnetzl, married. The marriage has four children.

Awards and honors

• 2005 - Leading Educater of the World awarded by the International Biographical Center , Cambridge

Publications (selection)

Subject area music and music history

• Sergei Sergejewitsch Prokofjew as a ballet composer. In: Fono Forum H.6 / 1959
• Angel and dog. The Angel label again on the German record market. In: Hi-Fi-Stereophonie H.9 / 1963
• EMI stops exclusive contracts for classical artists. In: Musikmarkt H.5 / 1964
• Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut (1772-1840). In: Musica sacra H.7 / 1965
• The gramophone museum of Electrola-Lindström GmbH in Cologne. In: Communications from the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry 11/1968
• Raphael Georg Kiesewetter (1773-1850). Pioneer of musical historicism. Regensburg 1968 = Studies on the History of Music in the 19th Century, Volume 13
• Simon Sechter (1788-1867). In: Musica Sacra H.1 / 1968
• Kiesewetter's historic house concerts. On the history of the church music restoration in Vienna. In: Church Music Yearbook 1968
• Musical historicism in pre-March Vienna. In: W. Wiora: The spread of historicism over music, Regensburg 1969 = studies on the history of music in the 19th century, vol. 14
• Long-playing record production in the Federal Republic of Germany. Cultural and commercial development tendencies. In: Music and Society H.7 / 8, Karlsruhe 1970
• Record repertoire and audience. In: Music and Society H.10 / 11, Karlsruhe 1971
• Theses on the relationship between youth and record. In: Communications H.1 / 1977
• Wilhelm Furtwängler. Legacy and Commitment. In: Orpheus H.3 u. H.4 / 1986
• As if the Messiah was coming. In: Ed. Jutta Schall-Emden : Neither timpani nor trumpets. For Yehudi Menuhin, Munich 1991, 56-60.
• Kiesewetter, Raphael Georg. In: Music in the past and present, personal part, Vol. 10, 87–91, Kassel 2003
• The fixed sound. On the documentary character of music recordings with interpreters of classical music. Cologne 2006
• The Lindström AG between the world economic crisis and the merger with EMI Electrola. In: The Lindström Project. Contributions to the history of the record industry, Vol. 1, Vienna 2009, 27–39.
• “Patiently smiling…” Richard Tauber and Franz Lehar: a dream team on stage, in film and the Lindström recording studio. In: The Lindström Project. Contributions to the history of the record industry, Vol. 2, Vienna 36–41; German: 42–47.
• Raphael Georg Kiesewetter, ancestor of modern musicology. In: Raphael Georg Kiesewetter, History of European-Occidental Music (Reprint Leipzig 1846), WBG Darmstadt 2010, V-XX.
• Lotte Lehmann , lyric poet of the art of singing. A critical look at your Odeon recordings. In: The Lindström Project. Contributions to the history of the record industry, Vol. 3, Vienna 2011, 31–39
• How Emil Berliner has gone to the dogs. In: The Lindström Project. Contributions to the history of the recording industry, Vol. 4, Vienna 2012, 25–32

Other subject areas

• The "Wengler Affair". A contribution to the history of the international law institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society at the time of National Socialism. In: Jahrbuch der Juristische Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 14 (2013), ISSN  1869-6899 , pp. 168–211.
• On a Sudeten German mission. On the role of constitutional and international lawyer Herbert Kier during the Sudeten crisis in 1938. In: Jahrbuch der Juristische Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 15, (2014), ISSN  1869-6899 , pp. 66–177.
• Herbert Kier (1900-1973). A German-Austrian international lawyer. In: Jahrbuch der Juristische Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 16 (2015), ISSN  1869-6899 , pp. 269–326.

swell

• Authors Handbook Music 2009/2010, 184.
• Who's Who in the World 2005, New Providence 2005, 1134.
• The Cambridge Blue Book 2008/9, Trowbridge 2009, 198.
• Thorsten Knublauch: The Bravo Beatles Blitztournee - Five Days of Beatlemania in Germany in June 1966, BOD 2011, ISBN 978-3-8423-5356-5 .
• Margarete Zander: Sabine Meyer. World star with a heart, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8419-0194-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Herfrid Kier in the catalog of the German National Library