Hermann Kirchner (composer)

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Hermann Kirchner

Hermann Kirchner (born January 23, 1861 in Wölfis ; † December 29, 1929 in Breslau ) was a German musician and composer of folk songs .

Life

Hermann Kirchner attended grammar school in Ohrdruf and got to know many orchestral instruments, including violin and piano , through suggestions from other musicians . He then studied at the Berlin Academy of Music . He became a singer and after his marriage went to Mediasch in what was then the Hungarian Transylvania as music director . The then thirty-three-year-old artist, inspired by a tremendous creative urge, immediately seems to have felt extremely comfortable here. The contact with his new environment led to the longed-for stimulating revival of his musical plans. The creative spark seems to have jumped over to him at the first contact with the people of his new adopted home. A report by his Medias friend Carl Römer, who was the same age, gives eloquent testimony: “The ambitious, highly talented man accepted the new that was presented to him here with extraordinary receptivity, the peculiar creation of our landscape, the colorful mixture of peoples, our nationality in its special way Art [...] He enjoyed the original strength of our farmers. His almost impetuous creative urge now drove him to express this new experience musically. The first fruit of this new blossoming in its essence were the Saxon folk songs [...] "With a well-considered intention, Kirchner called his compositions" Transylvanian-Saxon folk songs ". From 1897 onwards he published them in three booklets in quick succession in the contract of GA Reissenherger in Mediasch. They contained a total of 19 compositions, some of which became extremely popular among the Saxons. The first two issues had nine editions, the third eight. The songs are still alive today and are sung wherever Saxons live. Hermann Kirchner also composed a number of operas in the astonishingly fruitful years of Medias. He had taken the plot of the first from Transylvanian-Saxon folk life and included numerous melodies from his songs that had been written shortly before. It was premiered in Mediasch in 1900 with great sustained success under the title Der Herr der Hann (later also called The Village Judge or Transylvanian Quartering ) and was repeated in Sibiu. In the same year Kirchner moved to Sibiu, mainly driven by the hope of finding better performance opportunities for his operas. In fact, his operas Stephania 1902 and Viola 1904 went over the boards here for the first time. In Sibiu, he succeeded George Dimas as head of the Romanian Music Association . He composed numerous songs and operas. Between 1906 and 1910 he stayed in Bucharest, where he was also offered a rich field of artistic activity and he finally became a professor at the Romanian State Conservatory in Bucharest . In his works he processed numerous Romanian motifs, e.g. B. in the "Romanian Lullaby" composed by himself and in his string quartet in A minor. In 1910 Hermann Kirchner finished his wandering life and returned to Germany. There he was accepted into higher education. Among other things, he was a teacher at the grammar school in Ohrdruf. At the same time he continued his work as a composer.

Most of his compositions were songs. He had particular success and resonance with the song Im Holderstrauch , the text and melody of which quickly found an unusual distribution. It was set to music by Kirchner in 1896 based on a text by his friend Carl Römer (pastor in Agnetheln , Meschen and Mediasch) in Transylvania. The song is still sung today on special occasions in his hometown. Hermann Kirchner, together with Georg Meyndt, is considered to be the founder of the singing movement among the Transylvanian Saxons : they were the first to write popular songs in dialect .

In old age, his daughter Elisabeth was of particular help to him. As a trained pianist, she accompanied his songs, played his father's piano pieces and took part in many concerts. When she died, a world collapsed for Kirchner. It took a long time before he could resume his artistic activity. Shortly before his death, he traveled to Transylvania again to conduct his own works and his folk opera Der Herr der Hann at the invitation of the Medias Music Association. “After so many years, I was kept incredibly touching on all sides and the dear people didn't even know what to do for me,” he wrote in a last letter to his relatives in Wölfis.

On December 29, 1929, Kirchner died in Breslau shortly before the age of 69. On his desk there were still piles of drafts and unfinished works. Most of his works were lost through the events and turmoil of the war.

Works

(Operas, musical dramas and fairy tale games)

  • Der Herr der Hann (Volksoper in three acts, 1897/98)
  • Stephania (musical drama in three acts)
  • Viola (comic opera 1903/04, based on Shakespeare's comedy What you want )
  • Princess Li-tu-se
  • Oyster princess (operetta)
  • Türkenjoch (fairytale game, 19/14)
  • A sun fairy tale (cheerful and romantic opera 1913/14)
  • great ballet (1913/14: In a cool ground , compositional arrangement of Eichendorff's poems)
  • Easter Vigil (Singspiel 1925/26)
  • Song album I (Songs: Romanian Lullaby, The Nightingale, The Bullfinch)
  • In a cool ground , Singspiel, 1925–1926
  • Memories, observations and advice from an old country teacher , 1927

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ohrdruf.de: Chronicle of the community of Wölfis ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (as of June 15, 2010) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ohrdruf.de
  2. ↑ Joseph Trausch , Friedrich Schuller, Hermann Adolf Hienz: Writer's Lexicon of the Transylvanian Germans. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2001, ISBN 3-412-15200-5 , p. 67. ( limited preview in the Google book search).
personal data
SURNAME Kirchner, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musician and composer of folk songs
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Wolfis
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1929
Place of death Wroclaw