Ludwig Wüllner

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Ludwig Wüllner (1921)
Ludwig Wüllner around 1910; Photography by Nicola Perscheid
Newspaper advertisement 1906
Honor grave, Thuner Platz 2-4, in Berlin-Lichterfelde

Ludwig Wüllner (born August 19, 1858 in Münster , † March 19, 1938 in Kiel ) was a German concert and opera singer (tenor), actor and reciter .

Life

Ludwig Wüllner was the son of the composer and conductor Franz Wüllner (1832–1902) and grandson of the philologist Franz Wüllner (1798–1842). The mother was Anna, née Ludorff. He was one of the most versatile and important stage artists of his time. He learned to play the piano and violin at an early age and sang in the choir of the Maximilian Gymnasium in Munich , where he passed the Abitur examination in 1876 - with Rudolf von Hößlin , Karl Schlösser , Gustav von Schoch and Carl Seitz , among others . From 1876 to 1880 he studied German in Munich and Berlin and received his doctorate in 1881 in Strasbourg Dr. phil. with the topic “The Hraban Glossary and the oldest Bavarian language monuments. A grammatical treatise ”. After further studies in Berlin he was from 1884 to 1887 private lecturer for Germanic philology at the Royal Theological and Philosophical Academy in Münster (today Westphalian Wilhelms University ) and performed as a violinist, singer and reciter.

From 1887 he studied singing (with Benno Stolzenberg ), composition (with Gustav Jensen ) and piano (with Otto Klauwell ) at the Cologne Conservatory . In one of his first appearances as a concert singer in 1888 he sang the tenor part in Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Cologne Gürzenich Orchestra under the direction of his father. In 1889 he was hired as an actor at the Meiningen court theater , where he worked as a hero and character actor until 1895. In 1889 Georg II awarded him the title of "Duke of Meiningischer Hofstauspieler". From 1889 he appeared on the most important German-speaking theaters in the world: u. a. at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin , the Vienna Burgtheater , the Prinzregententheater in Munich, the Schauspielhaus in Leipzig and the Deutsches Theater in New York. Wüllner made his operatic debut in 1896 at the Weimar Court Theater in the title role of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser . In 1900 he improved his singing technique with the well-known singing teacher Georg Armin in Leipzig.

Wüllner was particularly known as a lieder singer. The pianists and conductors who accompanied him were among the most important musicians of their time: Johannes Brahms , Richard Strauss , Fritz Steinbach , Arthur Nikisch , Hermann Zilcher , Artur Schnabel , Max von Schillings , Felix Weingartner , Gustav Mahler and many others. Wüllner was often referred to as the "chamber singer of the German people". Successful concert tours have brought him to England, the Netherlands, France, Scandinavia, Russia and the USA. In 1910 he sang the American premiere of Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder in New York , which was directed by Mahler himself.

Wüllner was also an important speaker and reciter of poems, ballads and drama monologues. He particularly took on the form of melodrama . His interpretation of the 1902 melodrama Das Hexenlied (music by Max von Schillings, text by Ernst von Wildenbruch ) was impressive . A sound recording of this work was made in 1933 with the 74-year-old Wüllner and the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of the composer just a few days before Schilling's death. There are several sound recordings of Wüllner's speaking voice that give a good impression of his eccentric and fascinating speaking style. Wüllner is buried in the Parkfriedhof Lichterfelde in Berlin-Steglitz (honor and family grave, in the forest 227). His grave was an honorary grave of the city of Berlin from 1956 to 2014 .

Roles (selection)

play

  • Wallenstein ( Friedrich von Schiller )
  • Wrangel in Wallenstein (Friedrich von Schiller)
  • Shylock in The Merchant of Venice ( William Shakespeare )
  • Hamlet (William Shakespeare)
  • Brutus in Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare)
  • Teuthold in Die Hermannsschlacht ( Heinrich von Kleist )
  • Talbot in The Maiden of Orléans (Friedrich von Schiller)
  • Lélio ( Hector Berlioz )
  • Manfred ( Lord Byron and Robert Schumann )
  • Othello (William Shakespeare)
  • Nathan in Nathan the Wise ( Gotthold Ephraim Lessing )
  • Lear in King Lear (William Shakespeare)
  • King Oedipus in Oedipus on Colonos ( Sophocles )
  • Faust ( Johann Wolfgang von Goethe )
  • Tartuffe ( Molière )
  • King Philip II in Don Carlos (Friedrich von Schiller)
  • Tetrarch in Salome ( Oscar Wilde )
  • Prospero in Storm (William Shakespeare)
  • Mark Antony in Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare)
  • Mephisto in Faust (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
  • Egmont (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Opera

Sound recordings

  • Max von Schilling's “The Witches Song” & recitations: Ludwig Wüllner “Germany's greatest bard”. Ludwig Wüllner (speaker), Max von Schillings (composer, conductor), Berliner Philharmoniker. Compact Disc, Bayer Records 200 049. 1999.
  • Schillings: Das Hexenlied and other compositions. Max von Schillings (composer, conductor), Berliner Philharmoniker, Staatskapelle Berlin, Ludwig Wüllner (speaker), Barbara Kemp (soprano), Josef Mann (tenor). Compact Disc, Preiser 90294. 2001.

literature

  • Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 1151, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Hermann Albert (Hrsg.): Illustrated music lexicon. J. Engelhorns Nachf., Stuttgart 1927 (photo).
  • Erich H. Müller (Ed.): German Music Dictionary. Limpert, Dresden 1929.
  • Hugo Riemann (Ed.): Musiklexikon. 11th edition, Berlin 1929.
  • Franz Ludwig: Ludwig Wüllner: His life and his art. With fourteen contributions by contemporary personalities (with a list of the songs sung by W.). Erich Weibezahl Verlag, Leipzig 1931.
  • NN: Ludwig Wüllner on his 75th birthday , in: Münchner Latest Nachrichten, No. 225, August 19, 1933, p. 2.
  • Hermann Degener (Ed.): Who is it ?, 10th edition, Leipzig 1939.
  • H. Kullnick: Berliners and Berliners by choice. Persons and personalities in Berlin from 1640 to 1960. Berlin undated (around 1960).
  • Franz Wüllner and Ludwig Wüllner , in: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): The music in past and present. General Encyclopedia of Music, Vol. 14, Kassel 1968.
  • Dietrich Kämper: Music in the past and present . Volume 14. Kassel 1968.
  • Edward F. Kravitt: The Joining of Words and Music in Late Romantic Melodrama . In: The Musical Quarterly . Vol. 62, 1976, pp. 571-590.
  • Uta Lehnert: A voice for the dead: The Lichterfelde park cemetery . Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1996.
  • Matthias Nöther: Live as a citizen, speak as a demigod. Melodrama, declamation and chanting in the Wilhelmine Empire . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar 2008.

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Wüllner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Wüllner, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German concert and opera singer (tenor), actor and reciter
DATE OF BIRTH August 19, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Muenster
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1938
Place of death Kiel