Hilde Langer-Rühl

Hilde Langer-Rühl (1970)

Hilde Langer-Rühl ( Hilde Winifred Rühl ; born June 17, 1911 in Overijssel , Netherlands ; † October 3, 1990 in Vienna ) was a Dutch - Austrian pianist, breathing teacher and founder of breathing, voice and movement training for singers and instrumentalists.

Life

Hilde Langer-Rühl studied composition and piano in Osnabrück with Wilhelm Kempff , Eduard Erdmann and Edwin Fischer . She also trained in breathing with Clara Schlaffhorst and Hedwig Andersen . After marrying the literary scholar Norbert Langer , she fled to Aigen im Ennstal in Styria in 1945 , where she worked as a music school teacher. The family settled in Bad Aussee , where the children Cornelius and Dorothea were born. In 1955 she was called to the Music Academy in Vienna , where she initially mainly taught piano as a minor. From 1960 to 1976 she taught breathing and vocal science as a major subject and in 1974 founded a "course for breathing, voice and movement training for instrumentalists". In 1976 she retired, but continued teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna until 1987, then taught privately until her death in 1990.

Act

Hilde Langer-Rühl is considered a pioneer in the field of breathing, voice and body work, especially for musicians. Their work was based on the following assumptions and theses:

• When making music, the musical impulses must emanate from the diaphragm , on every instrument. She substantiated this in two films that she shot together with the Viennese pulmonologist Franz Muhar.
• After an exhalation ( guided by voice, articulation or body movement), a deeper involuntary inhalation ensues.
• After a guided exhalation, which ends with an explosive sound, this inhalation occurs as a reflex .
• Only when the musician is in harmony with his physical skills and at the same time in harmony with the natural breathing movement can he execute the spiritual and emotional content of the music and make it audible.
• If the body is damaged, limp or overstretched through its predisposition or lifestyle, it quickly tires, the sound quality suffers, phrasing and articulation are only half successful.

method

Through breathing and movement training in connection with the voice, she sought

• improve the overall physical condition of their students
• to harmonize their tone ,
• to strengthen the middle of the body as the seat of the diaphragm and power center, and thus to relocate the starting point of many musical impulses from the periphery - the hands, the lips - to the middle of the body,
• to improve the spiritual and musical approaches to the work.

Means to do so

• strengthening and centering physical exercises, some of which she invented herself and some of which she had adopted from Schlaffhorst-Andersen ;
• Voice exercises aimed at precise articulation and intonation and activating the diaphragm,
• as well as the technical and artistic work on the instrument and the work, the detailed analysis of which, as a trained composer, she demanded from each of her protégés.

Hilde Langer-Rühl's approaches are partly medically and scientifically founded, but partly also lie in the various influences of her time and her personal training paths and experiences. In the combination of breath, voice, body and instrument, she found an approach to lead people to a relaxed, flexible, as authentic as possible game. This path is characterized by the fact that the musician is viewed as a being with strengths and weaknesses, the improvement of which lies in his own hands: through the means of breathing training, the use of voices, the powerful centering of the body, skillful action on the instrument and through intelligent analysis of the work. Only when all these parameters are ideally fulfilled can music-making affect the whole person. Her scientific research studies are among the first works of musicians' medicine and music physiology that were later established .

Beyond the effect of a good teaching concept, the great success of her work was based on her strict, but always positive, supportive personality, who worked intensively for her protégés and students. This protection sometimes went beyond the normal framework of the student-teacher relationship and often also included the private sphere, for which she gave instructions for the correct sleeping posture, the optimal dimensions of head cushions or correct breathing for everyday activities.

Publications

• Music and breath . In: breath. The magazine for breathing care - massage - relaxation modern gymnastics. 5th year, issue 2, 1963, page 1 ff.
• Neurasthenia, breathing and voice . In: breath. The magazine for breathing care - massage - relaxation modern gymnastics. 7th year, issue 4, 1965, page 20 ff.
• Breathing and voice in the service of psychology, voice medicine and music education . After a lecture given at the international congress of university professors and lecturers JAUPL in Vienna, “Teaching and Research Methods” (September 6th to 12th, 1965). In: Foliae Phoniatricae. Volume 18, 1966, page 218 ff.
• Breathing and exercise aid for aging people . In: breath. Journal of Respiratory Care - Massage - Relaxation Modern gymnastics. 8th year, issue 2, 1966, page 13 ff.
• Life support for everyone over 50 . In: breath. The magazine for breathing care - massage - relaxation modern gymnastics. 9th year, issue 4, 1967, page 12 ff.
• Breath and voice as helpers for personal development and health . In: breath. The magazine for breathing care - massage - relaxation modern gymnastics. 11th year, issue 2, 1969, page 18 ff.
• Spine, joints and breathing . In: breath. The magazine for breathing care - massage - relaxation modern gymnastics. 12th year, issue 1, 1970, page 1 ff.
• Breathwork in music education . In: breath. The magazine for breathing care - massage - relaxation modern gymnastics. 14th year, issue 2, 1972, page 25 ff.
• Concentration and balance of forces in the artistic performance of the musician . In: Music Education. Volume 29, Issue 2, 1975, page 67 ff.
• Live easier and work better . In: Breath and Man. Issue 3, 1976, page 18 ff.
• In memory of Eduard Erdmann . In: Manfred Schlösser and Christof Bitter (eds.): Encounters with Eduard Erdmann. Agora Darmstadt, 1972

Movies

• Diaphragmatic dynamics when breathing, singing and making music . Hilde Langer-Rühl, Franz Muhar, Horst Coblenzer. Manufacturer: BHWK (Vienna), 1970. Publication: BHWK (Vienna), distribution: IWF (Göttingen)
• Breathing management and posture when making music . Hilde Langer-Rühl, Franz Muhar. Manufacturer: Hochschule für Musik u. performing arts (Vienna) 1980. Publication: BHWK (Vienna), distribution: IWF (Göttingen)

literature

• Sabine Skopal: Hilde Langer-Rühl: Life and Work. Re Di Roma-Verlag, Remscheid, 2011. ISBN 978-3868704037 .

Web links

• Department for integrative breathing, voice and movement training at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna