Hermann Schildberger

Hermann Schildberger (born October 4, 1899 in Berlin ; died September 24, 1974 in Melbourne ) was a German-Australian conductor , choir director , pianist, organist , music writer , piano teacher, répétiteur and composer of synagogue music and a lawyer.

Life

Hermann Schildberger graduated from the Königstädtisches Gymnasium in his hometown of Berlin in 1917 . After one year of military service, he studied law, philosophy and musicology at the universities of Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Würzburg and Greifswald from 1918 to 1920. In October 1920 he received his doctorate in Greifswald with a thesis on musical copyright law. jur. He continued his musical and legal studies in Berlin from 1921 to 1923. His teachers at Berlin University included Max Friedländer , Georg Schünemann and Johannes Wolf .

In November 1922 he passed the first state law examination and then worked as a trainee lawyer. From 1924 to 1926 Schildberger took a position as a music and theater critic for the newspaper Am Abend in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, and then continued his work as a trainee lawyer in Berlin. In 1927 the Jewish Reform Congregation in Berlin appointed him choir conductor. On their behalf, he created a musical liturgy for the reform community from 1928 to 1929, which he had, financed by the publisher Hans Lachmann-Mosse , recorded on around 150 records in the Lindström studios with prominent artists such as Joseph Schmidt and Paula Salomon-Lindberg . Schildberger presented these recordings in several German cities and in 1930 at an international congress in London. After he had passed the second state law examination in May 1930, he became the managing director and syndic of the Prussian State Association of Jewish Communities in 1932, as well as the head of the cultural department for the Jewish communities in Prussia.

As a Jew, Hermann Schildberger's license to practice as a lawyer was withdrawn in June 1933. In 1933 he was a co-founder and board member of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (later the Jewish Cultural Association), whose music department he headed until 1934. On a voluntary basis, he headed the artists' aid program for the Berlin Jewish community, for which he organized art evenings. From 1935 he conducted orchestral and choral concerts for the Jewish Winter Aid .

In March 1939 he emigrated with his wife and son to England, where he was offered a position as music director of a liberal synagogue in Australia. After moving to Melbourne, Schildberger took over this position at the Temple Beth Israel in St. Kilda , which he held until his death in 1974. In addition, he began extensive conducting and teaching activities and established several choirs and orchestras in the greater Melbourne area: in 1940 the New Melbourne String Orchestra , in 1943 the Brighton Philharmonic Society and in 1944 the Camberwell Philharmonic Society . In 1949 he took over the management of the National Theater Opera School , a position he held until 1971. As Associate Conductor and Chorus Master of the National Opera Melbourne , he regularly conducted opera performances. From 1950 to 1971 he also conducted the State Service Concert Orchestra . His most spectacular concerts in March 1958 included the performance of the great dramatic cantata Song of Hiawatha by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with several choirs and the Victorian State Orchestra .

In 1992 Alfred Fassbind , curator of the "Joseph Schmidt Archive" in Switzerland, published an anthology of religious chants and arias in which he used some of the records produced by Schildberger in Berlin. He wrote: "These recordings are not only to be added to the best that the singer has left us, they are also among the greatest rarities in record history." In 1994 Rabbi John Levi initiated the restoration , supported by the Feher Jewish Music Center of Beth Hatefusoth and (2005) publication of the surviving recordings on CD.

For his services to Australian musical life, the British Queen Elizabeth II appointed him Member of the British Empire in 1970 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Albrecht Dümling: Hermann Schildberger. In: Lexicon of persecuted musicians from the Nazi era . University of Hamburg , Institute for Historical Musicology, December 2, 2017, accessed on May 20, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Booklet for the CD The Music of the Jewish Reform Community in Berlin.
3. ^ CD The Music of the Jewish Reform Community in Berlin. Edition The Jewish Music Center of Beth Hatefutsoth, edited and commented on by Rabbi John Levi. Melbourne, BTR 9702