Joachim Matzner

Joachim Matzner (born January 27, 1931 in Berlin-Lichterfelde ; † December 10, 2003 in Pätz , Brandenburg ) was a German music journalist. He became known as the "father" of the first special-interest broadcaster for classical music in Germany, Bayern 4 Klassik .

Life

In 1950 Matzner graduated from the Askanische Gymnasium in Berlin, Tempelhof with the Abitur. He then began studying musicology , journalism and physics at the Free University of Berlin. In 1967 he received his doctorate (magna cum laude) with Adam Adrio with a thesis on the systematics of drone instruments .

In 1958 he took up his journalistic activity as a music critic through concert reports and reviews of records for Die Welt, Die Zeit , FAZ and SZ . From 1961 he is a permanent contributor to the magazine fono forum .

After working as a freelance writer for school radio at RIAS Berlin, he accepted a position as a music editor there in 1963. As an editor in the educational program, he received the ARD Kurt Magnus Prize in 1965 for a report on the stay of the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan in Saint Petersburg. His programs about Furtwängler and Toscanini were regarded by fellow critics as highlights of the program.

From 1963 to 2003 he was a member of the jury for the German Record Critics' Prize in the symphonic category.

In 1972 he became Deputy Head of Music Programs at the Süddeutscher Rundfunk Stuttgart. Also in 1972 he was given the opportunity to pass on his experiences as part of a teaching position in musicology and journalistic practice at the Free University of Berlin.

In February 1977 Matzner became head of the serious music department at Bayerischer Rundfunk . In 1980 he initiated the Klassikwelle Bayern 4 and remained head of the classical program until 1993. The “Klassikwelle” became a trademark of Bavarian Broadcasting. Matzner, together with radio director Ernst Emmerich, played a key role in making the archives of Bavarian Radio, both historical and current concert recordings, accessible for publication on sound carriers.

From 1979 to 1981 Matzner was President of the Munich Beethoven Society.

Anyone who got to know Joachim Matzner personally, in addition to his general education and eloquence, liked to notice two typical characteristics without whose description his biography would be incomplete: On the one hand, his knowledge of the great conductors of the 20th century and their conducting styles. Because he was able to imitate them with great effort in their appearance and facial expressions in order to simultaneously portray their musical interpretations in a solfegging manner. He liked to sing and “conduct” a piece like the one Toscanini had made it sound, in order to then recreate the different conducting styles of, for example, Furtwängler visually and tonally for the same music . On the other hand, he was characterized (according to Jürgen Meyer-Josten, 1993) by his accurate wit and humor. His lecture at the Festival Komische Musik in July 1997 in the former temple of experimental music, the Podewil Berlin, will not be forgotten. In a rousing lecture he described his cough problems as the head of a music station. He spoke of grossly brute concert enhancements, with which he tried, in self-irony, to portray a lifelong fear of concertante coughing attacks. ( SWR and MDR broadcast an approximately 25-minute excerpt from the lecture as a radio play under the title "Meine Huster".)

After his retirement, Matzner moved to Eichwalde near Berlin together with his wife Christiane Rutledge-Matzner . As chairman of the newly founded cultural advisory board from 1997 in the Alte Feuerwache, the Eichwalder cultural center, he organized concerts with musician friends, such as the orchestra academy at the Staatskapelle Berlin or soloists from the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks or the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Joachim Matzner died on December 10, 2003 in a car accident in Pätz (Brandenburg).

Publications

• On the systematics of drone instruments. (Collection of musicological treatises, volume 53) Verlag Heitz, Baden-Baden 1970
• The conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler in examples. Book and 2 music cassettes. Selection and accompanying texts. Atlantis music book, Zurich 1986
• Furtwängler studies. I.
• Contributions to the symposium of the 1st Wilhelm Furtwängler Days, Jena by Joachim Matzner, Werner Thärichen, Roger Allen, and Günter Birkner Ries & Erler (1998)
• Furtwangler. Analysis, document, protocol
• Schott Music Int. GmbH + Co (1998)
• The Berlin Philharmonic. Philharmonic, conductors, soloists. Photography: Reinhard Friedrich , introduction: Joachim Matzner. G + H Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-931768-36-8 .