Josef Gregor

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Josef "Sepp" Gregor (born September 9, 1903 in Vienna ; † March 5, 1987 in Bonn ) was a classical philologist from his professional training and felt himself to be a music teacher, especially a folk song teacher .

Life

Sepp Gregor founded the Klingende Brücke in Essen in 1949 , an international association of song studios that have set themselves the goal of learning European folk songs in the original languages.

Sepp Gregor, himself born and raised in the heart of a multiethnic state, was a child who mastered Czech, Slovak and Hungarian folk songs as well as German. When Gregor returned to Plön from a Soviet prisoner-of-war in 1947, he realized that the catastrophe of the Second World War could only be mastered with mutual understanding and trust among peoples. For this purpose, songs of all languages ​​spoken in Europe were compiled in the respective original language at his monthly meetings. No language was excluded from the start. In addition to Western European and German songs, Sepp Gregor also included Eastern European songs in the repertoire, even if political Europe was increasingly separated by an iron curtain . North and South American songs in European languages ​​- Gregor called them at the time “the daughters of Europe across the ocean” - are also in the repertoire of his Klingende Brücke.

With the name Klingende Brücke , Sepp Gregor leaned on Die Brücke , the cultural institution of the British occupation administration in their zone of occupation. This supported Gregor's plans to find each other again by singing from the start in the form of the two music-loving British cultural officers Colonel Elwes (Essen) and Boy Wolsey (Bochum). The "foreign languages" do not represent an obstacle in connection with the music, but on the contrary represent an ideal bridge to understanding the songs themselves, the culture of their countries of origin and the people who live there.

Gregor's work "European Songs in Original Languages" (Gregor et al. 1956; see below) was groundbreaking in the German-speaking area with regard to the reception of songs in original languages ​​for many other similar song collections such as that of Jane Peterer, Helmut König or Klaus Buhé (see below) . Such songbooks became fashionable in the late 1970s and 1980s. During this time, the school songbooks also gradually recorded songs in the original languages.

Over the years, many people let themselves be carried away by Sepp Gregor's idea and participated. In many places in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria circles of the Klingende Brücke formed. Sepp Gregor looked after these song studios himself to a large extent until his death in 1987. People of all educational levels, professions, ages and nationalities still take part in the song meetings of the Klingende Brücke to fill the songbook of Europe with life.

The jazz violinist Valentin Gregor is his son.

On June 18, 1980, Josef Gregor received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon from the then Mayor of Bonn, Hans Steger, for maintaining international folksong in European singing circles in the sense of international understanding .

Works

Josef Gregor contributed significantly to the following works or they were developed in his spirit:

  • Gregor, Josef; Klausmeier, Friedrich; Kraus, Egon: European songs in the original languages;
    • Vol. 1: The Romance and Germanic languages, Berlin 1956
    • Vol. 2: The songs in the Slavic, Finnish, Ugric and other languages, Berlin 1960
  • Youth work of the Abbey of Maria Laach by P. Alkuin Real, Laacher Liederbuch, Maria Laach 1964
(with significant assistance from Sepp Gregor, who is not named)
  • Schilling Konrad et al. (ed): Der Turm: Edition B - Folklore from all countries, Bonn 1966
(Collaboration by Sepp Gregor)
  • Sounding Bridge ( Sonja Ohlenschläger and Gert Engel):
    • Song atlas of European languages ​​of the Klingende Brücke;
      • Volume 1: Bonn 2001
      • Volume 2: Bonn 2002
      • Volume 3: Bonn 2003
      • Complete index sorted by languages, the alphabet, genres, motifs, symbols, motifs, Bonn 2004
      • Volume 4: Bonn 2006
Volumes 1–3 each contain 10 songs in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, English, German, Russian, Polish, Greek and Turkish. Volume 4 contains songs in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Yiddish, Polish, Czech, Moravian, Slovak, Hungarian and German. The songs are supplemented with background information, pictures and sometimes maps; Volume 4 also contains an introduction to each language.

Song collections with songs in original languages ​​by other authors

Sound carrier recordings

  • Origins - historical audio documents from the early years of the Essener Freundeskreis Die Klingende Brücke for the 50th birthday in March 1999 (CD with Sepp Gregor on the cover and recordings from the Essener Singkreis from 1950 to 1954, publisher: die Andere Buchhandlung , Iserlohn-Drüppingen; compiled by Ruth Kollmann and Veerle de Leyn; original recordings on a wire-sounding device from FK Kollmann; digitization and sound engineering Jürgen Lutschkowski)

Footnotes

  1. ^ Günther Noll : Musical folk culture as an opportunity for social integration . In: Beatrice Vierneisel (ed.) Strangers in the country. Aspects of the cultural integration of resettlers in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania 1945 to 1953 . Waxmann, Münster 2006. ISBN 978-3-8309-1762-5 . Pp. 97–122, here p. 119
  2. ↑ See the articles in the Bonner Rundschau and the Bonner Stadtanzeigers of June 19, 1980 under the link on Wikimedia Commons.

Web links

Commons : Josef Gregor  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Gregor, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gregor, Josef Vinzenz (full name); Gregor, Sepp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian folk song teacher
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 5th 1987
Place of death Bonn