Luise Leven

Luise Leven , actually Louise Wilhelmine Leven, (* December 3, 1899 in Krefeld ; † July 17, 1983 in Hindhead , Surrey ), was a musicologist, musician and music teacher who had a doctorate in music and who had to emigrate from Germany in 1939. She went to the Stoatley Rough School , where she first worked as a teacher until 1960 and later also as deputy headmistress.

Youth and education

Luise Leven came from a well-funded family that had lived in Krefeld for centuries and where her father worked as a manager. According to her own statements, her childhood was very harmonious. She attended the local Higher School for Girls and was given 16 years, the high school . Then she went to the upper lyceum . After the final exam, a one-year training course for music teachers followed, which she supplemented with additional music lessons. In April 1920 she began studying at the Frankfurt University of Music and at the universities in Frankfurt and Berlin.

Leven describes her studies as “extravagant” and did not have to limit it when her father suffered financial losses due to inflation . She majored in musicology for six years (“definitely not a job, especially not for a girl”) and took philosophy, German philology and art history in the minor subjects. In 1926, she was supported by the Faculty of Arts University of Frankfurt to Dr. phil. PhD. For her dissertation, she received an award from the university and from Landgrave Alexander Friedrich von Hessen .

Working life before emigrating to England

Luise Leven returned to Krefeld after completing her studies in 1926. She taught music history, art history and theory as a lecturer at the State Music Teachers Seminar. At the same time she worked as a piano teacher at the municipal conservatory and as a teacher for general music education at the folk music school. But that didn't exhaust their range of action: “I also had private students. I became the chairman of the Association of Music Teachers, gave a large number of lectures, wrote reviews and articles for various newspapers, accompanied singers. I especially helped a singer friend of mine, whose choir I often led. I had a large group of friends, mainly with musical interests. "

The dramatic changes in Luise Leven's life began after the Nazis came to power. She was Jewish and thus directly threatened by an occupational ban. The director of the State College of Music Teachers was able to postpone her resignation for three years, but she could no longer give private lessons and had to accept the gradual decline of her bourgeois existence. Her work for the Jewish community gave her a hold in this situation. Luise Leven, up to now hardly familiar with the Jewish religion and customs, became a choir director and organist in the synagogue, learns Hebrew, taught English at Jewish schools and also privately and organized concerts. In addition, she maintained contacts with the Stoetley Rough School, where she first took part in a "summer school" in 1934.

For the time being, emigration did not seem justifiable to her. Her father died in 1937 and she did not want to leave her mother, who was then almost seventy. The perspective changed after the mother succeeded in obtaining a residence permit for Holland and the mother was able to fall back on family connections there. In addition, in January 1939, the Jewish community in Krefeld was forced to ask Luise Leven to resign from her position in the community, as after the synagogue fire during the November pogrom in 1938 , community life was no longer possible. This paved the way for Luise Leven to accept Hilde Lion's offer (whose life partner she became) to work at the school she founded. With the help of the German Jewish Aid Committee in London, Hilde Lion was able to get her a one-year residence permit. Luise Leven arrived in England in March 1939.

Exile in England

→ Main article : Stoatley Rough School

The first year in England was full of uncertainties: Luise Leven had a residence permit, but she was not allowed to earn any money, and the limitation of one year did not allow for a long-term perspective. It was also not clear whether the school would be able to finance them in the long term.

The outbreak of World War II turned out to be a godsend for her, cynical as it sounds, because now the conditions of residence in Great Britain have been relaxed and she has been granted a permanent residence permit. On the other hand, worries about the relatives who remained on the continent, especially the mother, grew. All attempts to help failed. Luise Leven's mother and fourteen relatives were deported and murdered.

After Luise Leven had worked as a “girl for everything” at the school in her first year, she headed music education at the Stoatley Rough School from 1940 to 1960 and later acted as deputy headmistress. She organized numerous cultural activities that also included the school environment. She also temporarily taught at a school for girls in Farnham and worked as a musicologist and reporting for local newspapers.

She closed her memories with the following quote:

“I've been lucky in some ways and I'm very grateful for that. But with Schubert's 'Wanderer' I can sing 'I am a stranger everywhere'. "

Honors

• In Hüls (Krefeld), a school with a special focus on hearing and communication is named after Luise Leven (LVR Luise Leven School).

Works

• Luise Leven: Mendelssohn as a poet with special consideration of his relationships with Ludwig Berger, Bernhard Klein and Ad. Bernh. Marx , Mahler, Krefeld, 1927 (Frankfurt Philosophical Dissertation, February 11, 1927).
• Several musicological essays by her appear in WorldCat under her name, Louise W. Leven:
  • An Unpublished Mendelssohn Manuscript , in: The Musical Times, v89 n1270 (19481201): 361-363
  • Loewe and Schubert , in: The Musical Times, v110 n1517 (19690701): 741
  • Clara Schumann's First Visit to England , in: The Musical Times, v97 n1358 (19560401): 190–191
  • Mendelssohn Drawing, Beethoven Rondo , in: The Musical Times, v104 n1447 (19630901): 637–638 (the article was written in collaboration with: Jack Werner; Ralph Leavis; Stanley Sadie; Louise W Leven; Leonard I Gentle)

literature

• Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (updated version: Hermann Schnorbach): The pedagogy of the rural education homes in exile , in: Inge Hansen-Schaberg (ed.): Landerziehungsheim-Pädagogik , new edition, reform pedagogical school concepts, volume 2, Schneider Verlag Hohengehren GmbH, Baltmannsweiler, 2012 , ISBN 978-3-8340-0962-3 , pp. 183-206.
• Heribert Houben: Dr. Luise Leven. December 3, 1899 to July 17, 1983. A look into Krefeld's musical life in the first half of the 20th century , in: Die Heimat. Krefeld yearbook. Journal for Niederrheinische Kultur- und Heimatpflege , vol. 82, Verein für Heimatkunde in Krefeld (ed.), Nov. 2011, pp. 81–96.
• Renate Heuer (adaptation): Bibliographia Judaica. Directory of Jewish authors in the German language , Volume 2: L - R, Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main [u. a.], 1984, ISBN 3-593-33062-8 .

During the Nazi period, Luise Leven was mentioned in two anti-Semitic writings:

• Hans Brückner, Christa Maria Rock (ed.): Judaism and Music - with an ABC of Jewish and non-Aryan music enthusiasts , 3rd edition, Brückner-Verlag, Munich, 1938.
• Theo Stengel, Herbert Gerigk (editor): Lexicon of Jews in Music. With a list of titles of Jewish works. Compiled on behalf of the Reich leadership of the NSDAP on the basis of official, party officially checked documents (= publications of the Institute of the NSDAP for research into the Jewish question, vol. 2), Bernhard Hahnefeld Verlag, Berlin, 1941.

Web links

• The new synagogue in Krefeld with memories of and by Luise Leven , pp. 142–147.
• The Five Principal Teachers at Stoatley Rough
• Luise Leven in the database of the University of Hamburg
• Link to LVR Luise Leven School [2]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The following remarks on youth and education are based on Luise Leven's memories, which were published on the website Die neue Synagoge in Krefeld with memories of and by Luise Leven ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Pp. 142–147, can be viewed. 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} The new synagogue in Krefeld with memories of and by Luise Leven ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Pp. 142-147 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} The Five Principal Teachers at Stoatley Rough ( Memento of the original from June 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . How the contact came about is not clear. 
4. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (updated version: Hermann Schnorbach): Die Pädagogik der Landerziehungsheime im Exil , p. 192
5. ↑ [1]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ^ Luise Leven in the database of the University of Hamburg