Chamber music hall in Friedenau

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The Crown Prince's House in Berlin-Friedenau

The Friedenau Chamber Music Hall goes back to an initiative of the harpsichordists and pianists Bradford Tracey and Rolf Junghanns , both Fritz Neumeyer students. Since 1986 you can hear music on historical instruments in the hall in the Berlin district of Friedenau , Isoldestrasse 9.

The hall

The hall

When the Canadian harpsichordist Bradford Tracey (1951–1987) was appointed as the youngest professor at the Hochschule der Künste - now: Universität der Künste (UdK) - in Berlin, and as Rolf Junghanns (1945–1993) after Neumeyer's death inherited his collection, the two looked for a hall for chamber music concerts on historical instruments, which they then found in the Friedenau Wagnerviertel . In a residential building built by Ladislaus Nowak between 1905 and 1907, the listed Crown Prince's House in Isoldestrasse, they had the rooms on the ground floor converted into a chamber music hall largely with their own resources. On April 7, 1986 the hall was inaugurated with works for harpsichord and fortepiano with instruments from the above-mentioned collection. Music of the Baroque formed and pre-classical and are the focus of musical events, as well as chamber concerts of classical music and romance are given.

Bradford Tracey died barely a year and a half after the chamber music hall opened in 1987, and when Rolf Junghanns also died in 1993, this meant not only the loss of the initiators and artistic sponsors of this institution, but also of the instruments that Junghanns decided to return to the Collection were returned to Bad Krozingen , where they can still be heard today in the castle concerts there.

Almost at the same time as Junghann's death, institutional funding by the State of Berlin ceased. Only the commitment of the Society of Friends of the Friedenauer Chamber Concerts, which was founded when the concert began in 1986 . V. (GFFK) was able to prevent the chamber concerts and the loss of the chamber music hall. In this difficult phase, the Hochschule der Künste helped by taking over the premises for training in early music , which also meant that some historical keyboard instruments were again located there. In 1994 the GFFK was able to resume concert operations, with a concert agency taking care of the planning of the concerts in the first few years. Since 1998 the Society of Friends has been running the concert business on its own - now entirely on a voluntary basis - with around 20 concerts a year. The 20th anniversary in 2006 was celebrated with Gustav Leonhardt , who could be heard earlier in Isoldestrasse. The 25th anniversary in 2011 also took place on a larger scale. The hall will mainly continue to be used by the Institute for Early Music of the UdK, with the Music Society Berlin (EMS), founded in the same year, acting as the organizational roof for the hall operation since 2011 .

Instruments

The UdK provides a two-manual harpsichord (a Taskin replica by Keith Hill), a Böhm grand piano ( Vienna , approx. 1830) and a stone replica by Michael Walker. The GFFK has a Stöcker wing (approx. 1850, currently not playable). In addition, other keyboard instruments that the artists bring with them can often be heard.

literature

  • GFFK (Ed.): 25 Years of Friedenau Chamber Concerts , 2011.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to old address books, there was first a restaurant on the first floor, then a school for gymnastics and dance, later a workshop for refrigerators, then for vending machines.
  2. ↑ While there is an abundance of grand pianos that can be played in their original state, this is not the case with harpsichords. Here you are usually dependent on good replicas.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the Berlin State Monument List

Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 36 "  N , 13 ° 19 ′ 54.8"  E