Karl Laux

Karl Laux (center) in 1954 after a concert in conversation with David Oistrach (left) and General Music Director Franz Konwitschny .

Karl Laux (born August 26, 1896 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein , † June 27, 1978 in Dresden ) was a German musicologist , music critic and university rector .

Life

First edition of the book Nachklang 1977 (with dust jacket)

Laux attended from 1902 to 1906, the primary school and from 1906 to the War School , the grammar school in Speyer. After serving as a war volunteer in World War I from 1914, he was taken prisoner by the British between 1917 and 1919. From 1919 to 1924 he studied musicology with Theodor Kroyer and Hans Joachim Moser at the University of Heidelberg . From 1922 he worked as a music critic in Mannheim and from 1926 to 1934 as music editor for the Neue Badische Landeszeitung . In 1934 he moved to Dresden, where he worked for the Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten until 1943 . At the same time he was a lecturer at the Dresden University of Music from 1936 to 1948. From 1943 Laux was the cultural-political editor of the Dresdner Zeitung .

After the Second World War he joined the KPD / SED and was Ministerialrat in the Saxon Ministry of Education from 1945 to 1948. From 1948 he was the music editor of the Tälichen Rundschau in East Berlin and from 1951 editor-in-chief of Music and Society . From 1952 to 1963 he worked as rector and successor to Fidelio F. Finke at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden .

In 1956 he was President of the Robert Schumann Society . On August 29, 1956, Laux was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver.

Laux was particularly committed to the composer Joseph Haas and his works.

Laux's musicological work in the Nazi regime and in the GDR is viewed critically, for example in a book about Anton Bruckner in 1940. In it Laux drew a picture of Bruckner that corresponded to the National Socialist view of Bruckner. A modified version of this Bruckner book was published in 1947.

From 1958 to 1963 he was a member of the People's Chamber .

In 1971 he received the Patriotic Order of Merit (VVO) in gold and in 1976 the VVO in gold. In 1972 he became an honorary citizen of the city of Zwickau . Karl-Laux-Strasse in Dresden was named after Karl Laux .

Grave of Karl Laux in the Trinitatisfriedhof in Dresden.

In 1977 the Verlag der Nation Berlin published Karl Laux's autobiography .

From 1951, Erich Höhne (photographer) and Erich Pohl (photographer) from Dresden created many photo series at events with Karl Laux. These are available in the Deutsche Fotothek - SLUB Dresden.

Karl Laux's estate is kept in the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library.

Works

• Contemporary music and musicians, Volume I: Germany , 1958.
• Music in Russia and the Soviet Union , Henschelverlag Berlin, 1958.
• Joseph Haas. Portrait of an Artist - Picture of a Time , Mainz, 1931.
• Nachklang, review of six decades of cultural activity , Verlag der Nation Berlin, 1977.
• Numerous other publications of books and larger articles by the author are listed in the appendix to the autobiography Nachklang .

literature

• Marion Demuth: Karl Laux: author, cultural politician, rector , in: Dresden and advanced music in the 20th century. Part II: 1933–1966 , ed. by Matthias Herrmann and Hanns-Werner Heister, Laaber 2002, pp. 325–336 ( Musik in Dresden 5), ISBN 3-89007-510-X
• Dieter Härtwig : Laux, Karl . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
• Siegfried Köhler:  Laux, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , pp. 742 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Torsten Musial:  Laux, Karl . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Karl Laux  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Karl Laux in the catalog of the German National Library
• Karl Laux estate in the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library
• Special catalog on the estate of Prof. Dr. Karl Laux

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Laux: Nachklang: Autobiography . Verlag der Nation, 1977, p. 40 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
2. ^ Institute for Newspaper Studies at the University of Berlin (ed.): Handbook of the German daily press. Armanen-Verlag, Leipzig 1944 (7th edition), p. 185.
3. ↑ Harry Waibel : Servants of many masters. Former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , pp. 195-196.
4. ^ Laux estate, Karl (1896-1978). In: kalliope-verbund.info. Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library, accessed on May 6, 2020 .