Konrad Wolff

Konrad Wolff (born March 11, 1907 in Berlin , † October 24, 1989 in Cologne ) was an American pianist and piano teacher of German origin.

Life

As the son of the legal scholar Martin Wolff, Wolff received his doctorate as a lawyer in Berlin in 1930 . After the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, he emigrated to Paris and studied piano with Artur Schnabel, who was also expelled . In 1937 he married the photographer Ilse Bing .

As a German refugee, he was interned in the French camp of Camp de Gurs in 1939 , but after being mediated by Varian Fry , he traveled from Marseille to New York via Trinidad . In 1946 he became a US citizen.

As a piano and music teacher, Wolff worked at the Westchester Conservatory (1949–54), at Drew University, NJ (1952–62) and at the Peabody Conservatory (1963–74).

In 1987 he took part in the piano masterclass in Essen and had his first appearance here in front of a German audience since 1933.

Wolff died in 1989 in Cologne of a heart attack shortly after participating in a symposium on Essen musical tradition in exile of the emigrants of the Nazi era .

A long-standing friendship and a common German- Jewish exile fate linked him to the pianist and composer Erich Itor Kahn , on whom he published a first monograph in 1957 together with the composer and conductor René Leibowitz ; especially the chapters on the pianist , interpreter and pedagogue Kahn bear Wolff's signature.

Wolff's mediation of the pianistic tradition of the Leschetitzky - Schnabel School is comparatively better known , in particular through publications on Artur Schnabel's piano playing, musical thinking and teaching practice.

Wolff describes the influence of migrants on American musical culture in his 1989 lecture Piano Pedagogy in America under the influence of Hitler's emigration using the example of the famous refugees Artur Schnabel , Rudolf Serkin and Edward (Eduard) Steuermann : “If we summarize what the main thing is that is what the teachers from the emigration gave to the Americans, I believe, it is the insight that, as Erich Itor Kahn put it, musical understanding and feeling for music are not enemies but allies. ... That so much good has come out of the most tragic circumstances should not ease the conscience of anyone who feels or should feel guilty from the older generation. But I wish and hope that there will be much [more] a beneficial exchange between both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in our area, for continuous joy and animation. "

Works (selection)

The trustee's party betrayal - the prevarication in the past and present. Mannheim 1930
René Leibowitz et Konrad Wolff, Erich Itor Kahn - Un grand représentant de la Musique contemporaine. Paris 1957
The Teaching of Artur Schnabel - a guide to interpretation. London 1972 (German as: interpretation on the piano: lessons with Artur Schnabel. With an insert by Alfred Brendel, Munich 1979)
Masters of the Keyboard. Indiana University Press. Bloomington 1990 (2nd) (German as: Master of Piano Music. 1999)
Piano pedagogy in America under the influence of Hitler's emigration. - Lecture Essen 1989 in: Music tradition in exile - Back from oblivion. Cologne 1993
Gillen, Ruth, ed. The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff. Indiana University Press. Bloomington 2006.

literature

Konrad Wolff - On the death of the piano teacher , obituary by Juan Allende-Blin in the FAZ from October 30, 1989
Juan Allende-Blin, Music tradition in exile - Back from oblivion. Cologne 1993

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Wolff, Konrad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American pianist and piano teacher
DATE OF BIRTH	March 11, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin
DATE OF DEATH	October 24, 1989
Place of death	Cologne