Hermann Abendroth (conductor)

Hermann Abendroth

Hermann Paul Maximilian Abendroth (born January 19, 1883 in Frankfurt am Main , † May 29, 1956 in Jena ) was a German conductor and music teacher . He was one of the most important orchestral conductors of the 20th century.

From 1905 he was music director in Lübeck and from 1911 in Essen and from 1915 to 1934 chief conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra and director of the Cologne Conservatory . He was appointed general music director in 1918. As the successor to Bruno Walter , who was expelled from Germany by the National Socialists , he conducted the renowned Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra until the end of the war . After 1945, Abendroth was able to build on his successes in the Third Reich . In 1945 he took over the Staatskapelle Weimar and at the same time directed the radio symphony orchestras in Leipzig and Berlin until his death .

Abendroth has made a name for himself as an interpreter of works by Beethoven , Brahms , Bruckner and Mozart . There are not many recordings by Abendroth, who was quickly forgotten by the general public.

Live and act

Training in Munich

Hermann Abendroth was born on January 19, 1883 in Frankfurt am Main , the son of the bookseller August Moritz Abendroth and his wife Henriette Frohmann, daughter of a toy manufacturer . He grew up in a culture-loving home. Abendroth attended the Wöhler Realgymnasium and the commercial school in Frankfurt from 1888 to 1900 . The composer Walter Braunfels was one of his school friends . From 1900 to 1901, at his father's request , he was trained as a bookseller in Munich , where his sister also lived.

Abendroth then studied music theory and composition with Ludwig Thuille , piano with Anna Hirzel-Langenhan (student of Theodor Leschetizky ) and conducting with director Felix Mottl at the Royal Academy of Music until 1904 . He also attended philosophy lectures at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . The majority of his teachers were influenced by neo-romanticism . As a student in 1903, Abendroth became a member of the General German Music Association (ADMV) run by Richard Strauss , which enabled him to have many contacts with musical personalities. From 1910 he sat on the music committee of the ADMV and was thus also a board member qua office. He also led the choir of the Munich Orchestra Association and the Munich Orchestra Association Wilde Gungl .

Stations in Lübeck and Essen

Patron Ida Boy-Ed

When Ugo Afferni announced his move from the Lübeck Philharmonic Orchestra of the Verein der Musikfreunde to the Wiesbaden spa orchestra for autumn 1905, the board received ninety applications for his successor. He invited the Kapellmeister Fritz Binder from Gdansk , Carl Ehrenberg from Posen , José Eibenschütz from Abo and Abendroth from Munich to hold rehearsal concerts with the association's orchestra. On May 2, 1905, the majority of the board decided that Abendroth would take the position of conductor in the concert hall in Fünfhausen and the Coliseum from autumn of that year . In 1907 he was also first conductor for concerts and operas at the Lübeck City Theater and from 1910 director of the Lübeck Philharmonic Choir . He also assisted Mottl in Wagner performances at the Prinzregententheater in Munich and Bayreuth . Like his Lübeck successor Wilhelm Furtwängler , he was financially supported by the writer Ida Boy-Ed .

Boy-Ed wrote a poem out of admiration for Abendroth:

What you were to me - let it be said later -
you were shine and brightness to me,
The gray displeasure was chased away,
When you stepped on my threshold -
God gave you a being so light
that - who was your friend -
could recover from it.

In 1911 he married the actress Elisabeth Walter, daughter of the Neustrelitz theater director Hugo Julius Franz Walter. Even when he was no longer active in Lübeck, he often returned there. Like Thomas Mann from Munich and Fritz Behn from Argentina , both of whom, like him in Lübeck, had once been promoted by Ida Boy-Ed, Abendroth was one of the invited guests to the city's 700th anniversary in 1926. The high point of the festival on June 6, 1926 coincided with Thomas Mann's 51st birthday. She invited her former patron to her apartment at the castle gate . There they first watched the parade and then celebrated the birthday.

From 1911 to 1914, Abendroth was Essen's successor to Georg Hendrik Witte as City Music Director and conducted the Essen Philharmonic until 1916 . He reformed the programming and allowed romantic and contemporary composers to play. In 1914 he worked as a conductor at the 49th Tonkünstlerfest of the ADVM, where he made contacts with Max von Schillings , Jean Louis Nicodé , Siegmund von Hausegger and Artur Schnabel . Other guests in his house were Wilhelm Furtwängler, Max Reger and Hans Pfitzner .

General Music Director of Cologne

From 1914 to 1934 he was artistic director of the Gürzenich Orchestra and the affiliated Gürzenich Choir in Cologne . Abendroth became a member of the Rotary Club of Cologne. He associated with personalities such as Felix Weingartner , Otto Klemperer , Heinz Tiessen and Alfred Hoehn . On his 50th birthday he received the original score of Anton Bruckner's 7th Symphony from his musician friends . Richard Strauss proposed Abendroth in 1918 as the successor to General Music Director Fritz Steinbach . In the same year he appointed the mayor Konrad Adenauer to GMD of Cologne . A year later he became professor of conducting at the State University of Music in Cologne and in 1925 took over the management of the Cologne University of Music together with Walter Braunfels, which they expanded into one of the most modern institutions of its kind in Germany. In 1922 he conducted the Niederrheinische Musikfest in Cologne, and from 1922 to 1923 he also gave concerts with the Staatskapelle Berlin .

No recordings were made with the Gürzenich Orchestra. He achieved prestige through world premieres, including the Te Deum (1922) by Walter Braunfels , Das Dunkle Reich (1930) by Hans Pfitzner (1930) and the cantata Middle of Life (1932) by Egon Wellesz . In 1929 he also directed the German premiere of Shostakovich's 1st Symphony . Guest performances took him to Amsterdam (1920), Moscow and Leningrad (1925 and 1927/28), England (1926), Magdeburg (1929), Venice (1929), Stettin (1931), Chemnitz and Dresden (1933), Mannheim and Karlsruhe (1933 and 1934) and Norway (1934). In the United Kingdom he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra and in Soviet Russia with the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR . He later gave lectures at the University of Cologne about his concerts in the Soviet Union and published the memorial My Experiences in Russia . From 1930 to 1933, in addition to his work in Cologne, he was general music director in Bonn and interim led the Beethoven orchestra .

Abendroth's repertoire included not only classical and romantic composers, but also composers such as Béla Bartók , Paul Hindemith , Arnold Schönberg , Franz Schreker and Igor Stravinsky . In 1928 he answered an invitation to honorary membership in the German national lecture stage of the West ,

“That I am unwilling to join the honorary committee you are planning. I am an Aryan by birth, and my worldview is based on this, but I am not inclined to participate in a company that systematically boycotts Judaism. "

- gap

In the 1933/34 season, his co-director and friend Walter Braunfels was dismissed as a " half-Jew " by the National Socialists . Abendroth was also under observation by cultural officials in the 1930s. He adapted. In 1933 he joined the Reichsmusikkammer (RMK), where he headed the student council of music educators and choir directors from 1933 to 1945 . He also became a member of the RMK Administrative Committee. Failure to join the Reichsmusikkammer would have meant an occupational ban for him, after all, membership in the newly established professional association was compulsory to practice, but assuming an office was not. Abendroth conducted the Gürzenich Orchestra on March 21, 1933 for the “Celebration of the National Revolt ”, but his commitment to Jewish composers and the tours to the Soviet Union later led to arguments with the Gauleiter of Cologne-Aachen Josef Grohé . The SA exerted considerable pressure on the entire college of professors (Abendroth was insulted as a cultural Bolshevik ). Abendroth, however, refused to join the NSDAP. He was finally dismissed in 1934 by Lord Mayor Günter Riesen . After that he was initially active as a travel conductor.

Gewandhaus Kapellmeister

8th Gewandhaus Concert (1944)

Abendroth had already conducted the world premiere of the Piano Concerto Op. 22 by Paul Kletzki in the Gewandhaus in the 1920s and applied for the prestigious position for the first time, but at that time Wilhelm Furtwängler was preferred. In 1934 he became the new Gewandhaus Kapellmeister in Leipzig at the suggestion of Lord Mayor Carl Friedrich Goerdeler , who praised him as a “truly German and nationally sensitive Kapellmeister” . His predecessor Bruno Walter had to leave the Third Reich because of his Jewish descent. After 1934, Abendroth delighted the Leipzig audience primarily with works by Bach , Beethoven and Brahms . Exceptions were the world premieres of the 3rd Symphony (1934) by Johann Nepomuk David and the Mozart Variations (1935) by Philipp Jarnach .

In Leipzig he frequented Karl Höller , Julius Weismann , Karl Straube , Max Strub , Günther Ramin , Georg Kulenkampff and Walther Davisson, among others . In 1933 he was appointed professor of conducting at the State Conservatory of Music . In 1935 he was briefly artistic director of the orchestra of the cultural and political department of the NSDAP district leadership in Leipzig. He joined the NSDAP in 1937. In 1938 he was proposed by the President of the RKK as Reich Culture Senator. His cultural-political treatises appeared in magazines such as Deutsche Kultur-Wacht , National Socialist Monthly Issues and Deutsches Volkstum . In 1938 he welcomed the invasion of Austria and the so-called Anschluss with the following words:

“In music there was never a division between Germany and Austria. The fact that the togetherness has now also been achieved politically, thanks to the Fuehrer's unique act, is something the German musicians in particular will thank the Fuehrer for. "

- gap

Since the 1930s he was a guest conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker . Guest performances took him to Southeast Europe in 1936, to the Reichsmusiktage in Düsseldorf in 1938 and to the German Art Day in Munich. On May 1, 1937, he joined the NSDAP (membership number: 5,893,093). At the same time Peter Raabe , Werner Hübschmann and Walter Wiora were included. This was followed by further engagements, such as from 1938 as artistic director of the GewandhausChors , he took over the chief conductor of the orchestra of the Landestheater Darmstadt and in 1941 of the Rhein-Mainisches Landesorchester Frankfurt . In 1943/44 he conducted Wagner's Meistersinger at the Bayreuth Festival . He performed regularly in the German-occupied territories, including Denmark (1940), the Netherlands (1941), France (1942 and 1943), the Balkans (1943) and Belgium (1944). In 1943, 1944 and 1945 she performed at the so-called “ Kraft durch Freude ” concerts. In the final phase of the Second World War (August 1944) he was included in the list of the most important conductors, approved by Adolf Hitler , who had been gifted by God , which saved him from being deployed in the war, including on the home front .

According to an article in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , Abendroth is still “dismissed as a politically windy opportunist and careerist” in public. The historian Michael H. Kater compared Abendroth's political convictions with the opportunism of Hans Pfitzner and Siegmund von Hausegger . In 2004 the music historian Fred K. Prieberg criticized the mild treatment of Abendroth's Nazi past. He contradicted isolated representations, according to which Abendroth had to join the NSDAP in order to become Gewandhauskapellmeister, and referred to successful conductors of the time who did not become party members.

On the other hand, Abendroth fought from the beginning against the dissolution of the ADMV, which the National Socialists wanted. He campaigned for works by so-called “ degenerate ” composers such as Ernst Toch , Hans Gál and Alban Berg . His private commitment to the artists Günter Raphael and Wolfgang Kühne paints a more nuanced picture of Hermann Abendroth. The musicologist Irina Lucke-Kaminiarz , who published a biography about him in 2007, even sees Abendroth's actions as a tendency towards inner emigration . For example, she argues that his wife's lack of “ Aryan proof ” (rejection of the application for Aryan proof by the Berlin District Court in 1938) and the associated uncertainty induced him to join the party.

Because of his party membership, he lost his office in Leipzig on November 5, 1945. On November 20, he commented on the events with the following lines:

“I never had a party book, never took part in party meetings, nor did I get involved in the party in any other way, and I never gave the NSDAP a special sum apart from the usual donations imposed on members. So I am only a 'nominal' paying member and have always been negative about the worldview of the Third Reich. My entire interest was always and solely directed towards my professional and artistic tasks. "

- gap

General Music Director of Weimar

Although he was briefly on the "black list" of the US military government, he was able to continue his previous duties after the Americans had left. In particular, his previous visits to the Soviet Union benefited him. A picture by Hermann Abendroth has even hung in the Leningrad Philharmonic since the 1920s. The head of the Soviet military administration , General Ivan Kolesnichenko , built on him. As early as 1948 he received a clean bill of health (classified as "not charged") from the personnel auditing office of the Ministry of the Interior of the State of Thuringia.

National Theater Weimar, 1952

For political reasons he was no longer used in the music city of Leipzig. Instead, in 1945 he became the musical director of the German National Theater and thus of the Weimar State Orchestra ; from 1947 as general music director. He enlarged the orchestra and increased the musicians' fees. His repertoire included works by Russian composers such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky , Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky and Modest Mussorgsky . He premiered the Italian Hymn by Ottmar Gerster and the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Johann Cilenšek . He also directed the German premiere of Lutosławski's Mala suita . In Jena he directed the academic concerts . Concert tours have taken him through all the countries of the Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Union (as the first German conductor after 1945), Finland, the FRG and Switzerland. He also conducted in 1950 at the founding anniversary of the Cologne University of Music and in 1951 at the Prague Spring . The pianist Bruno Hinze-Reinhold saw Abendroth's achievement in the fact that “a first-rate orchestra was created from the good provincial orchestra”.

In addition, he was head of the conducting class at the State University of Music Weimar . He campaigned for the foundation of the Franz Liszt State Prize of the State of Thuringia . Further tasks were the management of the Thuringian music industry and curator of the Liszt Museum . Abendroth was the designated president of the Robert Schumann Society founded in 1957 . In Weimar he had contacts with Gerhard Bosse and Hans Joachim Moser . Abroad he met Tichon Chrennikow , Arvīds Jansons , Swjatoslaw Richter and Dmitri Shostakowitsch (Soviet Union), Witold Lutosławski (Poland) and Zoltán Kodály (Hungary). Shostakovich saw in Abendroth a first-class interpreter of Beethoven.

Berlin and Leipzig radio orchestras

In 1949 he succeeded Gerhart Wiesenhütter as director of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and, in 1953, of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra . Abendroth conducted a total of 14 rights concerts in Saxony in the 1955/56 season. With the Leipzig Radio Orchestra in particular, he made numerous radio and recordings (Brahms, Bruckner, Beethoven, Schubert , Schumann , Mendelssohn , Strauss, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Kalinnikow , Mozart and Haydn ). He was a staunch smoker . Therefore, before he began conducting, he negotiated a written contract with Leipziger Rundfunk, which made it possible for him to be the only one in the property to consume.

From 1949, Abendroth was a member of the NDPD block party , but he refused to join the SED . He was elected to the German People's Congress in 1949. From 1949 to 1950 he was an individual member of the Provisional People's Chamber and from 1950 to 1954 for the Kulturbund of the 1st People's Chamber of the GDR. In 1951 he was accepted as a member of the State Commission for Art Affairs . The conductor Christian Thielemann described in his book Mein Leben mit Wagner in 2012 : “Abendroth's alleged pacts with the political powers before and after 1945 became his undoing. The Federal Republic of Germany [...] declares the former NSDAP party book holder and citizen of the GDR to be a persona non grata [...]. "

Hermann Abendroth died after a short, serious illness on May 29, 1956 in the Jena University Hospital .

Posthumously

Abendroth's grave site (1964)

Abendroth's final resting place is on the honorary grave field of the historical cemetery in Weimar. Superintendent Ingo Braecklein held the funeral speech in Weimar . The guard of honor at the state funeral consisted of the musicians Richard Münnich , Helmuth Holzhauer , Gerhard Pflüger , Max Butting and Johann Cilenšek . The well-known Soviet violinist Dawid Oistrach wrote an obituary for Abendroth: for him he was a “tremendous artist”. The gravestone was donated by the city of Weimar in the form of a boulder, which contained a gold-plated inscription with the name Abendroth as the only ornament.

On the occasion of Abendroth's first anniversary of death, the GDR's Deutsche Post issued a special stamp. In Cologne-Seeberg ( Abendrothstraße ) and Weimar ( Hermann-Abendroth-Straße ) streets were named after him.

Abendroth's widow and sole heir presented the National Prize Winner Hermann Abendroth donation of 300,000 German marks to the Marie Seebach Foundation in 1970 and 1971 . It served to finance musicians in need.

On the 50th anniversary of his death (2006), the Liszt School of Music Weimar awarded the Hermann Abendroth Prize, endowed with 5,000 euros, to Hendrik Vestmann in a conducting competition .

His written estate is now in the University Archive / Thuringian State Music Archive in Weimar .

meaning

Abendroth was compared with his contemporary Wilhelm Furtwängler and was once dubbed “Furtwängler of the GDR”. The music journalist Friedrich Herzfeld described him as the “type of the powerful, healthy, German staff master”. He stands in a "Saxon tradition" with Franz Konwitschny and Kurt Masur . He thought little of so-called “desk virtuosos”, rather he strived to be faithful to the work . According to the music critic Karl Laux , he succeeded “in a few rehearsals to cheer even a less high-quality orchestra to top performances”. In 1956, the composer Rudolf Wagner-Régeny attributed the following character traits to him: sincerity, straightforwardness, exactness and routine. In Abendroth, the conductor Bernhard Böttner remembered “his distant but always exemplary nature”, his “natural authority” and his “physical and spiritual charisma”. The music critic Gottfried Schmiedel highlighted Abendroth's “simplicity”, “sense of humor” and “open-heartedness”.

Abendroth especially cultivated the classical-romantic repertoire of Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, but also of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. He performed contemporary music mainly by Johann Nepomuk David , Wolfgang Fortner , Ottmar Gerster and Karl Höller . The principal cellist of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Klingenstein , saw Abendroth as "an excellent conductor, but mainly for classical works, not for modern music".

There are few LP or CD recordings and a complete discography does not yet exist. His recording of the Wagner opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra from 1943 is considered by experts to be the most important historical recording of the work. In 2012, the Querstand label published historical recordings with the Gewandhausorchester in cooperation with the German Broadcasting Archive and the Central German Broadcasting Corporation.

Many conductors were apprenticed to him:

• Cologne: Gustav Classens , Ingolf Dahl , Oskar Disler , Heinz Dressel , Karl Elmendorff , Hermann Hildebrandt , Hanns Kleinertz , Felix Oberborbeck , Karl Hermann Pillney , Hermann Schroeder , Wilhelm Schüchter and William Steinberg
• Leipzig: Egon Bölsche , Balys Dvarionas and Karl Münchinger
• Weimar: Bernhard Böttner, Carl-Heinz Dieckmann , Heinz Fricke , Wolf-Dieter Hauschild , Günther Herbig , Theodor Hlouschek , Walter Schönheit , and Roland Wambeck

Honors, prizes and awards

• 1935 Medal in gold from the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities in Lübeck (together with Wilhelm Furtwängler)
• 1937 Commander's Cross of the Order of St. Sava
• 1944 War Merit Cross (1939) , 2nd class without swords
• 1946 Thuringian State Council : Appointment document recognizing the extraordinary services to the revival of Weimar's artistic tradition
• 1949 National Prize of the GDR for art and literature, second class
• 1952 member of the music section of the German Academy of the Arts
• 1952 honorary member of the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin
• 1953 Honorary Conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra of Saxony-Anhalt
• 1953 honorary citizenship of the city of Weimar (on the occasion of his 70th birthday)
• 1953 Honorary Senator of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena
• 1954 Patriotic Order of Merit of the GDR in silver
• 19 ?? Honorary member of the Association of German Professional Choir Directors

Fonts

• Intelligence service of the Reichsfachschaft 3, music educator, the Reichsmusikerschaft in the Reichsmusikkammer . Berlin 1935. (as editor)
• Supreme perfection. In: Richard Petzoldt (Ed.): Johann Sebastian Bach. The work of the master in the mirror of a city . Volk and Buch, Leipzig 1950, p. 82.

Discography (selection)

• Johannes Brahms , Symphony No.. 1, / 2 / 3 / 4 , Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, RSO Leipzig and Prague, 1942-52, 3 CDs, Tahra in 2009.
• Ludwig van Beethoven , 9th Symphony , RSO Berlin, 1950, Tahra 2010.
• Ludwig van Beethoven, violin concerto , RSO Berlin and David Oistrach (violin), 1952/60, Archipel 2011.
• Ludwig van Beethoven, 4th piano concerto , Peter Tchaikovsky, piano concerto No. 1 , Branka Musulin and Günter Kootz (piano), RSO Leipzig, 1950, Tahra 2010.
• Anton Bruckner , 5th Symphony , RSO Leipzig, 1949, Berlin Classics 1996.
• Anton Bruckner, 7th Symphony , Peter Tschaikowski, 6th Symphony, Suite No. 3, RSO Leipzig and Berlin, 1950–56, 2 CDs, Tahra 2009.
• Anton Bruckner, 9th Symphony , RSO Leipzig, 1951, Berlin Classics 1993.
• Joseph Haydn , Symphony No. 1 , RSO Leipzig, 1949, Berlin Classics 1997.
• Joseph Haydn, 88th Symphony and 97th Symphony , RSO Leipzig and Berlin, 1955/56, Berlin Classics 1996.
• Franz Schubert , Symphony in B minor , Great Symphony in C major , RSO Leipzig, 1949/50, Berlin Classics 1993.
• Richard Strauss , Don Juan , Death and Transfiguration and Till Eulenspiegel's funny pranks , RSO Leipzig, 1949–50, Tahra 2009.
• Richard Strauss, Festive Prelude, Eugen d'Albert , Cello Concerto, Engelbert Humperdinck , Moorish Rhapsody, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, 1940–45, Querstand 2012.
• Peter Tschaikowski , Symphony No. 4 , Robert Schumann , 4th Symphony , RSO Leipzig, 1951/56, Berlin Classics 1993.
• Peter Tschaikowski, Symphony No. 6 , RSO Leipzig, 1952, Berlin Classics 1993.
• Richard Wagner , Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival, 1943, 4 CDs, Myto 2008.
• Symphonies by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner and Tchaikovsky, RSO Leipzig, 1949–56, 7 CDs, Berlin Classics 2006.

Filmography

Hermann Abendroth performed the music in the following films:

• The unknown . Feature film, Germany 1936. Director: Frank Wisbar .
• Johann Sebastian Bach . Short documentary film, GDR 1950. Director: Ernst Dahle.

literature

monograph

• Irina Lucke-Kaminiarz: Hermann Abendroth - A musician in the interplay of contemporary history. Weimarer Taschenbuch Verlag, Weimar 2007, ISBN 978-3-937939-65-0 .

reference books

• Erich Stockhorst: Five thousand heads. Who was what in the Third Reich . Blick + bild Verlag, 1967, p. 27.
• Bernd-Rainer Barth , Ingrid Kirschey-Feix :  Abendroth, Hermann . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Carl Dahlhaus , Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht , Kurt Oehl (eds.): Brockhaus-Riemann music lexicon . Schott, Mainz 1995, ISBN 3-254-08396-2 , Volume 1, p. 9.
• Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads - who was what? Richard Bracht Verlag, Essen 1985, ISBN 3-87034-037-1 .
• Paul Frank, Wilhelm Altmann : Concise Tonkünstler Lexicon. 15th edition. Heinrichshofen's Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 1936, p. 1.
• Abendroth, Hermann. In: Stefan Jaeger (Ed.): The Atlantis Book of Conductors. An encyclopedia. Atlantis, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-254-00106-0 , p. 46.
• Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .
• Karl Laux :  Abendroth, Mr. In: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): The music in past and present (MGG). First edition, Volume 1 (Aachen - Blumner). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 1949, DNB 550439609 , Sp. 35-36
• Karl Laux, MGG editor:  Abendroth, Hermann. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 1 (Aagard - Baez). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 1999, ISBN 3-7618-1111-X , Sp. 39–40 ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
• Robert Philip: Abendroth, Hermann. In: Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20th August 2012.
• Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945 . CD-ROM Lexicon, Kiel 2004, pp. 39–49.
• Horst Riedel: Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z. 1st edition. Pro Leipzig Verlag, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , p. 6.
• Abendroth, Hermann. In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Volume 1: A - Bacilly . Macmillan, London et al. a. 1980, ISBN 0-333-23111-2 .
• Gottfried Schmiedel: Hermann Abendroth. In: Dietrich Brennecke, Hannelore Gerlach, Mathias Hansen (eds.): Musicians in our time. Members of the music section of the GDR Academy of the Arts . Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1979, p. 80 ff.
• Michael Schwalb: Abendroth, Hermann . In: Julian Caskel, Hartmut Hein (Hrsg.): Handbuch Dirigenten. 250 portraits . Bärenreiter, Kassel 2015, ISBN 978-3-7618-2174-9 , p. 58.
• Saxon conductors. Franz Konwitschny , Hermann Abendroth, Kurt Masur . In: Wolfgang Schreiber: Great conductors. Piper Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-492-25072-6 , p. 388 ff.
• Robert Volz (Hrsg.): Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The manual of personalities in words and pictures. First volume. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, ISBN 3-598-30664-4 , p. 3.
• Abendroth, Hermann. In: Egon Voss: The conductors of the Bayreuth Festival. Gustav Bosse Verlag, Regensburg 1976, ISBN 3-7649-2062-9 , p. 103.
• Joseph Wulf : Culture in the Third Reich. Volume 5: Music . Ullstein publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-550-07059-4 .

Individual studies and essays

• Georg Brieger: Hermann Abendroth 70 years. In: Musica. 7 (1953), p. 32.
• Hermann Abendroth as chief conductor. 1949 to 1956. In: Jörg Clemen, Steffen Lieberwirth : Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. The history of the symphony orchestra . Verlag Klaus-Jürgen Kamprad, Altenburg 1999, ISBN 3-930550-09-1 , p. 119 ff.
• Jörg Clemen: Hermann Abendroth and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. In: Thomas Schinköth (Ed.): Leipzig, the city of music in the Nazi state. Posts on a displaced topic . Kamprad, Altenburg 1997, ISBN 3-930550-04-0 , pp. 250-260.
• Markus Gärtner: “Not a word about the fulfillment of my conditions”! The correspondence between Hermann Abendroth and Hans Pfitzner . In: The Tonkunst. 2 (2008) 2, pp. 229-240.
• Ernst Krause: In memoriam Hermann Abendroth. In: Musica. 10: 538-539 (1956).
• Peter Ranft: "Captivating, strange". A conductor judges contemporary compositions. In: Messages. 25: 15-16 (1987).
• Eberhard Rebling : The memory of Hermann Abendroth. In: Music and Society. 6 (1956), p. 246 f.
• Joseph Wulf : Music in the Third Reich. A documentation . S. Mohn, Gütersloh 1963 (licensed edition Rowohlt 1966), pp. 23, 58 f., 78, 200, 227, 300, 302, 335, 337–339, 352, 359, 400, 461 f. Contains letters and excerpts from newspaper articles by Hermann Abendroth

Web links

Commons : Hermann Abendroth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Hermann Abendroth in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Hermann Abendroth  in the German Digital Library
• Search for Hermann Abendroth in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
• Literature about Hermann Abendroth in the bibliography of the music literature
• Hermann Abendroth in the Bavarian Musicians' Lexicon Online (BMLO)
• Hermann Abendroth , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 30/1956 of July 16, 1956, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Hermann Abendroth at filmportal.de
• Hermann Abendroth in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• 50th anniversary of Hermann Abendroth's death at the German Broadcasting Archive
• Hermann Abendroth in the Leipzig Lexicon
• Abendroth, Hermann Paul Maximilian. Hessian biography. (As of January 6, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
• Abendroth, Hermann in the Frankfurt personal dictionary

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Horst Riedel: Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z. Leipzig 2005, p. 6.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag} Irina Lucke-Kaminiarz: Hermann Abendroth - A musician in the interplay of contemporary history . Weimar 2007.
3. ↑

   “The association appointed the concert conductor and from then on Lübeck became a springboard for young talents . Ugo Afferni followed Abendroth, Wilhelm Furtwängler , who with Gustav Mahler befriended George Göhler and afterwards became Bayreuth -Dirigent Franz von Hoesslin , Karl Mannstaedt, Edwin Fischer , Eugen Jochum , Ludwig Leschetitzki and Heinz Dressel . "

   - Günter Zschacke : Moving orchestra history . In: Die Tonkunst , October 2013, No. 4, vol. 7 (2013), ISSN  1863-3536 , p. 498
4. ↑ Hermann Abendroth. In: Father-city sheets . Born in 1905, No. 19, May 7, 1905 edition, pp. 75-76.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Dietrich Brennecke, Hannelore Gerlach, Mathias Hansen (eds.): Musicians in our time. Members of the music section of the GDR Academy of the Arts . Leipzig 1979, p. 323.
6. ↑ Rubric: To our pictures. In: Von Lübeck's Towers , Volume 36, No. 14, Issue of June 26, 1926, p. 60.
7. ^ Conductors of the Essen Philharmonic , accessed on November 24, 2011.
8. ^ Egon Voss : The conductors of the Bayreuth Festival . Regensburg 1976, p. 103.
9. ↑ Herfrid Kier : The fixed sound. On the documentary character of music recordings with interpreters of classical music . Verlag Dohr, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-936655-31-6 , p. 540.
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 . CD-ROM lexicon, Kiel 2004.
11. ^ ^{A b} Frieder Reininghaus : Administrator of German Music. In 1956 the conductor Hermann Abendroth died . DLF, April 29, 2006.
12. ↑ ^{a b c} Wolfgang Schreiber: Great conductors. Munich 2007, p. 393.
13. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb : Loyal to the Führer and God-Grace. Artist elite in the Third Reich , Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-215-07490-7 , p. 176.
14. ^ Exhibition on Abendroth. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. May 1, 2008.
15. ↑ Michael H. Kater : Different Drummers. Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany . Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York 1992, p. 21.
16. ↑ Jörg Clemen; Steffen Lieberwirth: Central German radio. The history of the symphony orchestra. Verlag Klaus-Jürgen Kamprad, Altenburg 1999, ISBN 3-930550-09-1 , p. 117.
17. ↑ Wolfgang Schreiber: Great conductors. Munich 2007, p. 394.
18. ↑ ^{a b} Jörg Clemen; Steffen Lieberwirth: Central German radio. The history of the symphony orchestra. Verlag Klaus-Jürgen Kamprad, Altenburg 1999, ISBN 3-930550-09-1 , p. 118.
19. ↑ Neues Deutschland , July 21, 1949, p. 3.
20. ↑ Heiner Timmermann (Ed.): The GDR - Analyzes of an abandoned state . Berlin 2001, p. 396.
21. ^ Christian Thielemann : My life with Wagner . CH Beck, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-63447-5 .
22. ^ Johannes Forner: Hermann Abendroth. On the 50th anniversary of his death on May 29th . ( Memento of February 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 81 kB) In: Newspaper from the Music Quarter , June 14, 2006.
23. ↑ Neues Deutschland , July 11, 1956, p. 4.
24. ^ Hermann Abendroth on the 50th anniversary of his death ( memento from October 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar, accessed on November 24, 2011.
25. ↑ University Archive / Thuringian State Music Archive on the website of the Liszt School of Music Weimar .
26. ↑ Gottfried Cervenka : A great, forgotten conductor. 50th anniversary of the death of Hermann Abendroth . ORF, May 30, 2006.
27. ^ Karl Laux : Abendroth, Hermann. In: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): Music in past and present (MGG). Volume 2, Bärenreiter, Kassel 2001, p. 35 f.
28. ↑ Jörg Clemen; Steffen Lieberwirth: Central German radio. The history of the symphony orchestra. Verlag Klaus-Jürgen Kamprad, Altenburg 1999, ISBN 3-930550-09-1 , p. 115.
29. ↑ ^{a b} Dietrich Brennecke, Hannelore Gerlach, Mathias Hansen (eds.): Musicians in our time. Members of the music section of the GDR Academy of the Arts. Leipzig 1979, p. 81.
30. ↑ ^{a b} Matthias Meyer: Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. 1923-1998. Radio orchestras and choirs, Berlin 1998, p. 47.
31. ↑ Musik und Gesellschaft 11 (1961), p. 148.
32. ^ Susanne Baselt: Chronicle of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Halle . Part I: 1946 to 1964 . Edited by the management of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Halle, Halle (Saale) 1999, p. 67f.
33. ↑ From the history of the association. Honorary Members of the FDB , accessed November 24, 2011.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 15, 2012 .