Horst Schimmelpfennig

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Horst Schimmelpfennig (born March 15, 1912 ; † March 20, 1990 in Hamburg ) was a German cinema and concert organist.

Life

Schimmelpfennig was the youngest of three brothers in a family of musicians. The father was a baton trumpeter and choir leader in the 1st Magdeburg Hussar Regiment No. 10 in Stendal . His two brothers were also active as musicians. Erwin Schimmelpfennig (1905–1978), entertainment musician, led, among other things, the orchid orchestra in Hamburg's Planten un Blomen amusement park after the war. Herbert Schimmelpfennig (1911–1994) was concertmaster in the large radio orchestra in the Reichssender Hamburg, 1942–1945 in the Reichs-Bruckner-Orchester in Linz and until his retirement in 1978, meanwhile appointed chamber musician, in the Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz.

Horst Schimmelpfennig initially learned to play the organ autodidactically by playing along with the recordings of a Wurlitzer organ on the piano to the shellac records that his eldest brother had brought with him from the USA . Later, after a long hesitation, the father allowed regular lessons with the organist at the Schauburg cinema at Millerntor in Hamburg. In addition to practical instruction, Horst Schimmelpfennig was also allowed to sit in on this at any time. A little later, when he was fifteen, he accompanied the silent films with the cinema organ in the afternoon shows. Even as a secondary school student, he occasionally accompanied morning devotions on the organ in the auditorium.

In 1931 he went to Hamm to the UFA-Palast and played the Welte cinema organ there. In 1933 he was employed by the management of the UFA-Palast, built in Hamburg in 1929, the largest cinema in Europe with almost 3,000 seats. Here he started his career on the Wurlitzer organ. He became chief organist of all UFA palaces in Germany. At that time he mainly performed in the Berlin UFA-Palast am Zoo . Most of the records were also produced there. Through radio broadcasts and concerts, the name Horst Schimmelpfennig in connection with the Wurlitzer organ became a household name in Europe .

From 1940 until the end of the war he was employed by Wien-Film AG. Horst Schimmelpfennig was significantly involved in the construction of the three-manual "Lenkwil" cinema organ with eleven rows of pipes according to the multiplex system as well as cinema effects and tonal percussion for the synchronous hall, which was completed in the shell. There he accompanied the feature film The White Dream and several cultural films with the organ.

After the war almost all theaters with cinema organs were destroyed, so that he had to earn his living as a pianist in English officers' clubs. In 1949 he sat at the repaired Philips organ in Hamburg's UFA-Mundsburg-Theater (today Ernst Deutsch Theater ). In the early 1950s he had an engagement with Radio Basel in Switzerland , where he played the Hammond organ for the first time . With the proceeds of the records recorded there, he bought two concert models. From then on, he made music with these at home and abroad in hotels, concert halls and on cruise ships with great success. At the time he recorded many records for the companies Grammophon , Electrola and Polydor , which are still broadcast by radio stations today.

In addition to his performances, Horst Schimmelpfennig ran a music shop in Hamburg from 1965 until his death. He died on March 20, 1990 in Hamburg.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Multimedia music. Laaber 2000 Laaber. ISBN 3-89007-431-6 .
  2. ↑ a b Sabine Schutte: History of Music in Germany, I just want to sing about life ... , about popular music from the end of the 19th century to the end of the Weimar Republic. Rowohlt, 1987 ISBN 3-499-17793-5 . P. 343 ff
  3. ↑ Arno Schmidt: Portrait of a class, Arno Schmidt in memory . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1982. ISBN 3-10-070608-0 .
  4. ^ Karl Schütz: Theater and cinema organs in Vienna. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-7001-1788-4 . P. 134 ff
personal data
SURNAME Schimmelpfennig, Horst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cinema and concert organist
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1912
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1990
Place of death Hamburg