Karl Straube

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Karl Straube
Karl Straube grave in the south cemetery in Leipzig

Montgomery Rufus Karl Siegfried Straube (born January 6, 1873 in Berlin , † April 27, 1950 in Leipzig ) was a German organist and director of the St. Thomas Choir in Leipzig.

Live and act

education and profession

Karl Straube was the youngest son of Johannes Straube , who was an organist and harmonium maker in Berlin. His mother Sarah Palmer came from the English country nobility; the older brother William Straube became a painter. After an initial training with his father, Karl continued his autodidactic training ; he did not complete any academic studies. Nevertheless, he was soon a well-known organ virtuoso. In 1897 he got a job as organist at Willibrordi Cathedral in Wesel . As the music director of the Protestant parish, he also led the school choir of the Royal High School and Realschule, which traditionally had a close relationship with the Willibrordi Church.

In January 1903 Straube became Thomas organist at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. In the same year he became the choir conductor of the Leipzig Bach Society . In 1907 Straube became an organ teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig. In 1908 he was appointed professor there. In this role, Straube played a role similar to that of Marcel Dupré in Paris - until the 1970s there was hardly a major organist in Germany who did not go through his school. The author of a standard work on organ improvisation Karl Ludwig Gerok (1906–1975) was one of his students. His last prominent students were Karl Richter and Heinz Zickler .

In 1918 Straube was appointed Thomaskantor in Leipzig to succeed Gustav Schreck . He handed over the office of organist at the Thomaskirche to Günther Ramin . In 1919 he founded the Church Music Institute at the Conservatory, which he headed until 1941 and again from 1945 to 1948. Finally, in 1920 Straube united the choir of the Leipzig Bach Society with the Gewandhaus Choir , of which he was director until 1932. Straube was born with Hertha Johanna. Küchel (1876–1974) married, with whom he had a daughter (Elisabeth, 1904–1924).

In the autumn of 1920, Straube was in charge of the Thomanerchor's first trip abroad , which led to Denmark and Norway and laid the foundation for the choir to gain an increasingly high international reputation.

Act as Thomaskantor

Straube was the first Thomaskantor for centuries who no longer composed himself. Rather, he devoted himself to working with the choir, which in fact had to be rebuilt after the First World War . He increased the number of concerts, among other things, by redesigning the previous dress rehearsal on Friday for the second motet (next to the one already performed on Saturday).

Gradually, Straube studied all of Johann Sebastian Bach's cantatas with the St. Thomas Choir , which he first performed on Sundays from 1931 onwards. The four-year radio broadcast of all Bach cantatas dragged on until 1937 due to various difficulties. The radio broadcasts, some of which took place abroad and overseas, helped to make the St. Thomas' Choir known beyond the borders of Leipzig, which in turn encouraged travel.

Working in the organ subject

Straube increasingly turned away from the prevailing late romantic style and sought the baroque ideal of sound again , with which he strongly influenced the organ movement in Germany. This change in style is also clearly evident in the series of sheet music editions he published, “Old Masters of Organ Playing”.

Straube is also significant as the first interpreter of organ music by Max Reger , a friend of his age, whose work he encouraged and also decisively influenced (for example when he stopped working on Reger's Latin Requiem ). In 1901 he took over the world premiere of Reger's Three Choral Fantasies . The two were in a lively exchange of ideas and letters.

Role in National Socialism

Karl Straube was a member of the NSDAP as early as 1926 ( membership number 27.070), to which he belonged again in May 1933. After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , he signed the declaration of church music in the Third Reich in May 1933 , which was published in August 1933 in the magazine Die Musik as well as in the magazine for music : "We are committed to the popular basis of all church music." October 1933 Straube became honorary director of the Reich Office for Church Music of the Evangelical Church , which was subordinate to the " Reich Bishop " Ludwig Müller . Since 1934 he was a member of the administrative committee of the Reich Chamber of Music . As part of the Reichsmusiktage of the Hitler Youth in November 1937 in Stuttgart, he transferred the Thomanerchor to the HJ ( Thomanerchor der Hitlerjugend ), where the Thomanerchor appeared in Hitler Youth uniform.

At the end of 1939 Straube resigned as Thomaskantor, but continued to teach at the Leipzig University of Music. His successor in the Thomaskantorat was his student Günther Ramin in 1940.

From 1945

After his apartment was bombed out, Straube lived briefly in Tübingen and returned to Leipzig in May 1945. After a review of his political activities during the Nazi era, the anti-fascist-democratic bloc declared him rehabilitated in October of the same year. Straube still gave organ lessons up to March 1949, but became increasingly frail and suffered from increasing deafness.

estate

Letters left by Karl Straube are in the holdings of the Leipzig music publisher CF Peters in the Leipzig State Archives . The Zurich Central Library also has a collection of letters addressed to Straube.

Memberships

Awards and honors

literature

  • Christopher Anderson: Max Reger and Karl Straube. Perspectives on an Organ Performing Tradition . Ashgate, Aldershot et al. 2003, ISBN 0-7546-3075-7 .
  • Anonymous: gifts from friends. Karl Straube on his 70th birthday. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1943 (Festschrift).
  • Willibald Gurlitt , Hans-Olaf Hudemann (ed.): Karl Straube. Letters from a Thomaskantor. Koehler, Stuttgart 1952.
  • Christoph Held, Ingrid Held (Ed.): Karl Straube. Work and effect. Evangelical Publishing House, Berlin (East) 1976.
  • Günter Hartmann: Karl Straube and his school. "The whole thing is a myth" (= Orpheus series of publications on fundamental issues in music. Vol. 59). Publishing house for systematic musicology, Bonn 1991, ISBN 3-922626-59-9 .
  • Günter Hartmann: Karl Straube. An "old guard of the NSDAP". Self-published, Lahnstein 1994.
  • Bernhard Hemmerle :  Straube, Montgomery Rufus Karl Siegfried. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 1445-1449.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Martin Petzoldt : The Thomas organists in Leipzig. In: Christian Wolff (Ed.): The organs of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2012, ISBN 3-374-02300-2 , pp. 95–137 (pp. 121–125).
  • Herbert Zielinski (ed.): Johannes Haller and Karl Straube. A friendship in the mirror of the letters. Edition and commentary. Olms, Hildesheim et al. 2018. (Abstract)

Web links

Commons : Karl Straube  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ kunstmarkt.com: William Straube / Biography (accessed on September 10, 2015)
  2. ↑ Karl Straube on the website of the Konrad-Duden-Gymnasium Wesel , accessed on May 21, 2020.
  3. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 597.
  4. ^ A b c d Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945. CD-Rom Lexicon. Prieberg, Kiel 2004, p. 6.915.
  5. ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 597.
  6. ^ Karl Straube estate on the website of the Zurich Central Library, accessed on December 26, 2013.
  7. ^ Karl-Straube-Strasse on Google Maps
predecessor Office successor
Erwin Bumke President of the New Bach Society
1945–1949 		Christhard Mahrenholz
personal data
SURNAME Straube, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Straube, Montgomery Rufus Karl Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German organist and choir director
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1950
Place of death Leipzig