Karl Zumpe

Karl Zumpe (born May 20, 1924 in Zwickau , † November 15, 2001 in Leipzig ) was a German musician and long-time director of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig .

Life

After completing a notabitur , Karl Zumpe was drafted into military service at the age of eighteen. After deployments on both the Eastern and Western Fronts , he was a prisoner of war until 1948. After a time as a warehouse worker, he was employed as a librarian at Wismut in Johanngeorgenstadt . With only the experiences as a child in the choir of the Zwickau Katharinenkirche , he took over the choir direction in the cultural ensemble of the Wismut. It was here that Rudolf Fischer from the Leipzig University of Music discovered him at a choir competition and brought him to Leipzig to study.

After studying music from 1951 to 1956, he got a job in 1958 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus as head of the Gewandhaus chancellery. In 1960 this function was changed to that of Gewandhaus director. While the Gewandhauskapellmeister was in charge of the artistic and state management, the Gewandhaus director was responsible for organization and administration. The orchestra's initial reservations - Zumpe had joined the SED during his studies - he was able to overcome through good performances and commitment to the orchestra.

After Vaclav Neumann's departure from the Gewandhausorchester in 1968, the position of artistic director on an equal footing with the Kapellmeister was introduced, and Zumpe was appointed “Commissioner for the new construction of the Gewandhaus”. In the early 1970s, however, Kurt Masur restored the old conditions.

During Karl Zumpe's tenure, the various concert series and forms, some of which still exist today, and the annual visitor discussions before each new season were introduced.

He summarized the history of the Gewandhaus and its activities in his two-volume dissertation, on the basis of which he received his doctorate in 1981. In 1984 Zumpe received the Leipzig City Art Prize . In 1989 he had to give up his office as Gewandhaus director for health reasons. During his tenure over a period of 41 years, Zumpe exercised his office under the Kapellmeister Konwitschny , Neumann and Masur.

Fonts

• The history of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the problems in developing the orchestra into a leading socialist music institute in the German Democratic Republic . Dissertation 1981
• Res severa est verum gaudium. Gewandhaus in Leipzig. Gewandhaus anecdotes. Leipzig. VOB letterpress and offset printing, 1987.
• Kurt Masur - Gewandhaus Kapellmeister Leipzig . Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M., Berlin, 1990

literature

• Ulla Schäfer: Gewandhaus director Karl Zumpe . Edition Peters, Leipzig 1989
• Claudius Böhm, Björn Achenbach: Manager without "party mandate" , Gewandhaus-Magazin No. 5, summer 1994 (digitized version)

Web links

• Zumpe, Karl. In: Leipzig Lexicon. Retrieved June 10, 2019 .