Manfred Kluge

Manfred Kluge (born July 16, 1928 in Unna , † February 27, 1971 in Mölln ) was a German composer , Protestant church musician and music theorist who developed his own sound system. The spiritual content of music was essential to him.

Life

Manfred Kluge was born on July 16, 1928 in Unna. In 1932 the family moved to the then still independent Harburg south of Hamburg. He had two younger brothers. His mother was a singer, his father a music teacher at high school. He received thorough musical training at an early age, especially on the piano , and received first prize twice in the Steinway piano competition. He made his first attempts at composing at the age of nine.

The impressions from growing up in the Third Reich and World War II were also formative . Even as a child and adolescent, he was consciously aware of the fear and mistrust that reigned around him every day and of the bad things that happened. My own hard experiences were sending to the Kinderland ; the deployment as an air force helper, for which he was called up in 1944 at the age of sixteen; the death of the father in the war; own captivity . With his life and work, he wanted to contribute to the creation of a different Germany, which is about ethical values, the spiritual dimensions of existence, the connection to the divine, love and being for one another. These are also the themes of his music.

After graduating from high school in 1947, he studied piano with Conrad Hansen , choir conducting with Kurt Thomas and composing with Johannes Driessler and Günter Bialas at the Northwest German Music Academy in Detmold . After graduating in 1950, he decided to become a church musician and switched to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Academy and North German Organ School in Lübeck as a “scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation” . There he studied piano with Gerhard Puchelt , organ with Hans Klotz and composition with Jens Rohwer .

In 1950 Manfred Kluge married his fellow student, the pianist and harpsichordist Nora von Hase. They had three children together.

After the A-exam in 1953, he became cantor and organist at the Evang. St. Martinus Church in Hamburg-Eppendorf. Two years later he returned to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Academy in Lübeck as a lecturer for composition , ear training and artistic organ playing. In 1957 he gave up his office in Hamburg and became organist and cantor at St. Aegidien in Lübeck . There he worked until 1968, until his appointment as church music director in St. Jakobi , where there are two particularly valuable historical organs.

His own organ and choir concerts in Germany, Scandinavia and France as well as radio recordings on the NDR made Manfred Kluge widely known.

From 1953 he published his newly emerging compositions and quickly became very famous for them, especially for the Fantasia in three rhythms for organ (1956) and the choral works Johanneskonzert (1954) and Mass Maienzeit (1957).

In 1960 he was awarded the Hamburg Bach Prize , which was awarded to Wolfgang Fortner that year .

When the rood screen of the Aegidienkirche was being renovated, he wrote one of his main works in 1962: the cantata De Salvatore Mundi based on pictures and inscriptions from the rood screen for tenor and soprano solo, mixed choir and the interesting group of instruments harp, five woodwinds and low strings.

In 1966 he received the Schleswig-Holstein cultural award .

Even as an adult, Manfred Kluge participated intensively in political, social and spiritual developments and events in the world. Adenauer era, Germany divided, Cold War , Vietnam War , Kennedy's assassination . For Kennedy's memory he composed, for example, B. a cantata that was performed eight days after Kennedy's death in St. Aegidien (text: Gisela Maria Thoemmes). He helped many of his students and young choir members to understand their reasons for conscientious objection , to find suitable words for them and to be successful with it. When the 1968 movement also showed terrorist sides, he was very upset and unhappy about it.

Manfred Kluge made very high demands on himself. Despite his great successes as a church musician, composer, interpreter and person, he believed that he was not doing them justice. His inner restlessness, his doubts about himself and the disappointed hopes in relation to intellectual and political developments only allowed him to see the darker side of life and finally to break it.

On January 21, 1971, he performed his last work in Lübeck Cathedral : Palinody for mixed choir and solo soprano based on texts from Salomon's Song of Songs and from Hölderlin's Elegy . The themes in it are love and death. The work ends like this:

Choir: "Strong as death is love",

The solo soprano sings about it:

“And nobody knows.

Meanwhile let me walk

And pick wild berries

To erase the love for you

on your paths, O earth. "

Five weeks after this premiere, he passed away voluntarily.

The composer, church musician and music theorist

Manfred Kluge read a lot. Novalis , Hölderlin , Goethe , Ingeborg Bachmann and Giuseppe Ungaretti were among his favorite poets . His compositions are steeped in their thoughts and worldview, and some contain texts by them in addition to the biblical texts, church chorales and Christian theological content, e.g. B. von Ungaretti in the translation by Ingeborg Bachmann in the Ungaretti-Lieder (1965) and parts from Hölderlin's Elegy in the Palinodien (1970).

Quote: "His ... work ... testifies to a great intellectual depth and" (Walter) "the ability of clever, which can be described as extraordinary, to convincingly clothe intellectual content in sounds" (Tesche). (Joachim Walter in the booklet to the CD: Manfred Kluge. The great organ works. P. 2; Thomas Tesche: ... from ardent admiration to complete rejection ... Some thoughts on Manfred Kluge's work. In: Musik und Kirche. (61 ) 1991; 18, p. 16)

During his studies in Detmold he encountered anthroposophy and dealt with it for a while. He was later offered to head the musical section at the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Dornach . However, he did not answer this call.

The church music work for the Sunday services was one of Kluge's main concerns. Many chorale preludes , preludes and postludes as well as choral works were created for this. During the years at St. Aegidien there was a children's choir, a singing group for older parishioners and open parish singing hours in addition to the choir , in order to familiarize as many people as possible with church songs and new music. Here is a quote that also applies to his concert activities:

"We want to combine the issue of new music with the church's demands, that is, to shake people up, to direct their musical perception into future-oriented paths and thus to give new impulses to the life of church music."

In addition, he dealt intensively with the changes in music through the centuries and brought this into the lessons at the music academy in an interesting way, studied thoroughly the works of the Renaissance composers, e.g. B. Josquin Desprez , Guillaume Dufay , Johannes Ockeghem , and also played a lot of Joh. Seb. Brook . His correspondence with Theodor W. Adorno was important for Kluge's music theory.

His organ playing was very virtuoso and fiery, at the same time true to the work, clearly structured, transparent in lines and shape, registered in color and varied.

Listening to musical contexts was extremely important to him. He lived in and from it. This is also clear in the following quote. In his recommendations for choir training, he suggests exercises to experience the diversity of the 77 intervals of his Triskaidekatonischen system (see below) by hearing and singing:

“The recommended exercises are useful insofar as they actually convey a knowledge of unusual tones, make the mind more agile and equip the musical consciousness with an increased ability to find one's way in newer music. But it can also be that when you look carefully at some constellations you are so fascinated by the strange magic that is reflected in them that you completely forget the purely usefulness of the exercises about them. The Enharmonie especially, as it were a "favor", allows insights into reference fields of crystalline transparency and the most delicate coloring, flowing, cool, chaste and mystical ... "

Kluge belonged to the "Barsbütteler Arbeitskreis für neue Komposition" (Working Group for New Composition) that Jens Rohwer founded and in which composers and music theorists from many music academies had come together. He dealt intensively with new music , played organ works by contemporaries in his concerts and performed their choir and chamber music. Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen in particular were among the models of his compositional work, and he was a congenial interpreter of their works. He visited Messiaen several times in Paris , attended his concerts and courses. He made Messiaen's organ works known as one of the first in post-war Germany.

Manfred Kluge did not go along with some of the avant-garde paths of his time. He felt it to be irrelevant and a disdain for the listeners. He consistently represented this view in discussions, in writings and in an open letter to Gerd Zacher . For him, the intellectual content of a work was more important than the joy of experimenting with purely musical possibilities.

Instead, he developed the Triskaidekatonic system (13-tone) for himself , which consists of tonal, enharmonic-chromatic structures. He regarded it as the basis for his tonal language, especially for his later works. Therein the root , the major - and minor -Tonleiter assigned and four different intervals from Kirchentonarten . This results in twelve tones that surround the central fundamental tone equally, not as a ladder but as a circle, so that a highly differentiated mandala with seventy-seven different intervals arises from the relationships between the tones . This allows the greatest possible flexibility and color of the harmony to be achieved. The Enharmonik plays a special role , which is evident from the semi-octave, which occurs both as an excessive fourth and as a diminished fifth. This preference for the tritone can be heard again and again in Kluge's works. And in the representation of his tone system, he describes: "The unique possibility of this" ancient "interval to change the mask inconspicuously in more harmoniously turbulent contexts and to astonish the whole tone society with its shimmering, in order to abduct them at the same time into brightly colored rooms, to bless, to judge ... “(quotation from the below mentioned paper, p. 43) Manfred Kluge presented in detail his Triskaidekatonisches System 1969 in his contribution seventy-seven intervals to the Festschrift for Kurt Thomas on his 65th birthday : Choir Education and New Music , whose editor he was.

His music is described as:

“The compositions unite in a singular way up to 13-tone and serial means strict constructiveness and linearity with extreme, impressionistic sound sensuality. Its rhythm is floating, seemingly detached from every measure. Its sound quality is tied to the tonal, but not in the functional sense, but in the 13-tone complex, the "Triskaidekatonik". Commitment to language and expression are in the foreground. " (Johannes Günter Kraner, in: The music in history and present. )

"He understood how to fill a medieval line structure with impressionistic-untonal, yet tonal-sounding content." (Astrid Röhl: Von Personen . In: Der Kirchenmusiker. 22, 1971, p. 111f.)

"Kluge was not only concerned with the constructive aspect of his music, but above all with creating a real unity of sound, structure and expression." (Without name: In: Website Collegium Musica Nova Lubecensis Manfred Kluge . See web links)

"It was given to him to make the background of the music audible." (Herbert Breuer: In memoriam Manfred Kluge. In: Musik und Kirche 41, 1971, p. 163f.)

Kluge's works will continue to be played, performed, and recorded on audio media. He destroyed his youth compositions. Only after 1953 did he release works for publication. They were published by Breitkopf & Härtel in Wiesbaden and by Möseler-Verlag in Wolfenbüttel .

The basic themes of Manfred Kluge's life, his death and his music are summarized in his introduction to the organ work Our Father in Heaven - nine stanzas for organ (see discography):

“The same song melody (from the Luther song from 1539) is used nine times. Alienated in the frame pieces I (Call) and IX (Amen), cited in concealment in the inner stanzas, which represent the seven petitions of the Our Father .

1. Request (for clarity) - free play of rhythmically breathing groups.

2. Request (for fulfillment) - counter melody, coming from afar.

3. Please (for kindness) - violent motifs in rhythmic canons, in direct reflection and distortion. Twice interrupted by dark calm.

4. Please (for the nourishing) - over a circling bass row (symbol of measured time) webs of colored figures, apparently irrational, plays of light, pollen ...

5. Request (for freedom) - espressivo, canon in tritone (tonal symbol of a pair of tongs), pressing inserts of the “comes”.

6. Please (for perspective) - rushed 5/8 rhythm, ostinate rotation, chorale dragged along. No scream. Little balm.

7. Please (for life, for love) - melody stammered, a bit crazy, soothing gestures in the harmonious opposing layers. "

Fonts

• Manfred Kluge: Seventy-seven intervals. In: Manfred Kluge (ed.): Choir education and new music. For Kurt Thomas on his 65th birthday. Wiesbaden 1969

Works

Complete catalog of works in: Arndt Schnoor: Manfred Kluge (1928 - 1971). Publications of the Lübeck City Library , Third Series, Vol. 2, Lübeck 1998

Organ works

• Fantasy in three rhythms . Wiesbaden 1956
• Our Father in the Kingdom of Heaven - nine stanzas for organ . Wiesbaden 1963
• Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments . Arranged for organ by Manfred Kluge, oO. no year
• Nine chorale preludes for organ, published posthumously, Wiesbaden 1971
• Easy hymns for the organ . From the estate, ed. from the library of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck 2005

Choral works

• Johannes Concerto for baritone solo, male choir and organ, Wiesbaden 1954
• Annunciation. Biblical scenes for soprano and tenor solo, 1stg. Choir and organ, Wiesbaden 1955
• Mass May time for 4 - 6 hours. Choir, Wiesbaden 1957
• A ship comes loaded. Motet for 5stg. Choir and organ, Wiesbaden 1957
• Kings and Shepherds , motet after Georg Britting for 4stg. Choir, Wiesbaden 1959
• De Salvatore Mundi. Cantata based on pictures and inscriptions from the rood screen in St. Aegidien Lübeck for soli, choir and orchestra, Wolfenbüttel 1962
• Cantata in memory of Kennedy. Wiesbaden 1963
• Ungaretti songs for 4 - 6 parts. Choir, Wiesbaden 1965
• Palinodes. Texts based on Solomon's Song of Songs and fragments of Hölderlin's Elegy for mixed choir and solo soprano, Wiesbaden 1970

Discography

• LP: Uwe Groß plays works by Manfred Kluge on the Führer organ in Cloppenburg St. Joseph. Organ documents No. 8, Uwe Pape Berlin 1973
• LP: Manfred Kluge, De Salvatore Mundi. Cantata for soprano and tenor solo, five woodwinds, harp and low strings. Choir of the Lübeck University of Music . Head: Uwe Röhl (AGK 30701)
• LP: Manfred Kluge, Our Father in the Kingdom of Heaven - Nine verses for organ. In: Our Father in Heaven, organ compositions on Luther's Our Father Song by Scheidt, Buxtehude, Bach and Kluge, Thomas Rothert on the Ott organ in the Erlöserkirche in Bayreuth, Christophorus-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau (SCGLX 73947) o. J.
• CD: Manfred Kluge: Be happy at all times. including choral works. In: Be happy at all times! Choral music from Lübeck. Choral music with the Cantus Lübeck and the Lübeck Chamber Choir. Works by Distler, Kluge and Zillinger, Klassik Kontor Lübeck 1997
• CD: Manfred Kluge (1928-1971): The great organ works. Joachim Walter at the organs of St. Jakobi, Lübeck 2001 (Motette CD 12861)
• CD: Manfred Kluge, our father in heaven - nine stanzas for organ. In: Henk de Vries - Schnitger-Freytag Organ Zuidbroek. Henk de Vries at the Schnitger-Freytag organ (1795) in the Petruskirche zu Zuidbroek (NL), 2009

literature

• Johannes Günter Kraner: Manfred Kluge. In: Music in the past and present. (Ed. Fr. Blume) (old edition, vol. 16, col. 1003f.)
• Thomas Tesche: ... from ardent admiration to complete rejection ... A few thoughts on Manfred Kluge's work. In: Music and Church. (61) 1991; 18, p. 16
• Martin Taesler: Into the open ... On the structure and tonality of the “Nine Choral Preludes for Organ” by Manfred Kluge. In: Ars Organi . (51) Issue 2003/2, pp. 92-97
• Angelika Alwast, Jendris Alwast: Manfred Kluge. In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck, Vol. 12, 2006, pp. 261–266
• Helmut Langenbruch: The Triskaidekatonischer Complex or the secret of the 13th tone - Manfred Kluge on his 90th birthday. In: Ars Organi. (66) Issue 2018/3, pp. 171–174

Web links

• Works by and about Manfred Kluge in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Manfred Kluge, quoted from Uwe Pape in the booklet to the LP: Uwe Groß plays works by Manfred Kluge on the Führer organ in Cloppenburg St. Joseph. Organ documents No. 8, Uwe Pape Berlin 1973
2. ^ Manfred Kluge: Seventy-seven intervals. In: Manfred Kluge (ed.): Choir education and new music. For Kurt Thomas on his 65th birthday. Wiesbaden 1969, pp. 54/55