Konrad Siebach

Konrad Siebach (born October 9, 1912 in Pausa as Konrad Spitzbarth ; † September 22, 1995 in Leipzig ) was a German double bass player and double bass teacher.

Life

From 1926 he learned to be a musician and to play numerous instruments in the town band ("town pipe") Schleiz , initially with a focus on the trombone . Later he received double bass lessons from Alfred Hebold, the 1st double bass player at the Plauen City Theater . After working as a dance and entertainment musician in vaudeville and spa orchestras , he studied for a year with the solo bassist of the Stuttgart State Theater , Alfred Gräser, and then, from January 1935, at the orchestral school of the Saxon State Orchestra Dresden . He received a scholarship and studied double bass with Alwin Starke . This also included an orchestral internship in the Saxon State Orchestra. After just three years he was engaged by Hermann Abendroth at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on September 1, 1937 .

From 1940 he had to do military service and survived the Stalingrad stations , the battle for East Prussia and, as a wounded man, the evacuation with the ship Steuben and the bombing of Dresden in the hospital . Shortly before the surrender he deserted to avoid Soviet imprisonment, and in 1945 he returned to work with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. From November 1, 1947, after a successful audition, he succeeded Max Schulz in the position of first solo double bass player in the Gewandhaus Orchestra, which he held until his retirement on August 1, 1978. In 1954 he was given a teaching position at the Leipzig University of Music, which he held until 1992. In 1956 he changed his family name from Spitzbarth to Siebach. The reason was that Ulbricht was popularly called a goatee, with which he wanted nothing to do. In the new name he made reference to the composer Bach, whom he admired . Due to his reserved attitude towards the GDR , he was refused the title of professor for political reasons - like most of his East German colleagues - he was only given an honorary title at the end of 1991, after German reunification.

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Siebach was considered one of the best German continuo players from the 1950s to the 1970s . Together with the former solo cellists of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, he enforced the equality of the double bass in the continuo playing of the works of Bach and other baroque composers in Leipzig, which was then the leader in Bach interpretation. He earned merit by achieving the consistent use of the 5-string double bass in a pure fourth tuning (with subcontra-B) in the Gewandhaus orchestra, a pioneering measure for the German orchestral landscape . The sitting style of playing the double bass in the orchestra was also introduced during his time .

For 40 years, Siebach shaped the training of double bass players at the Leipzig University of Music , his students play or played in many large orchestras in Germany, some in other European countries and overseas. Not least at his instigation, the international double bass competition was launched in Markneukirchen , and he was a member of the jury for many years. Siebach played and taught the classic Prague and Dresden 3-finger playing technique based on Simandl , and he considered the German bowing when playing the double bass to be an essential foundation of the German orchestral sound. His unobtrusive and soft, but very present and clear tone were just as well known as his excellent playing posture and bowing .

The Bach studies he wrote for low instruments and other study works are still well known today. He rediscovered the double bass concerto by Franz Anton Hoffmeister through a tip from Lajos Montag and published it as a study concert for the first time in Germany.

Siebach preferred the instruments of the Markneukirchen bass maker Ernst Max Pöllmann and was able to get the Leipzig Opera to receive a complete set of Pöllmann 5-strings after its reconstruction. In the Gewandhaus he played a large German double bass built around 1780 with a 4/4 scale .

Web links

• Works by and about Konrad Siebach in the catalog of the German National Library