Oskar Hackenberger

Oskar Hackenberger (born July 24, 1872 in Langhennersdorf ; † November 8, 1929 in Berlin ) was a German conductor , army music inspector for the Royal Prussian Army of the German Imperial Army, army music inspector for the German Reichswehr and professor at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin. Several German army marches were edited and reprinted by him.

biography

Imperial Army

Oskar Hackenberger was born on July 24, 1872 in Langhennersdorf in the family of a musician. He attended the music school in Oederan . From 1890 to 1892 he was appointed solo trombonist with the orchestra of the Gewerbehaus in Dresden , where its director was Friedrich August Trenkler , who supported the young musician. In addition, Hackenberger attended the Royal Conservatory in Dresden and in the summer of 1892 worked as a trombonist at the Kurmusik in Bad Salzbrunn . On October 1, 1892, Hackenberger joined the music corps of the infantry regiment of King Ludwig III. von Bayern (2nd Silesian) No. 47 in Posen as a voluntary trombonist, where he performed his service with his younger brother Max, who was a flautist in the same orchestra. In two years, Oskar Hackenberger became a surplus NCO hoboist, in 1897 a surplus and finally regular sergeant hoboist, whereby, according to the then common practice, he tried to improve his financial situation by performing extra-duty concerts. The achievements of Hackenberger prompted the assignment of the young musician to the Royal Academy of Music in Charlottenburg , where he completed his studies from October 1, 1900 to August 1, 1903. After taking his exams, Hackenberger was sent back to his regiment, where his previous music corps conductor died shortly afterwards and Hackenberger took over his position on October 1, 1903.

As a music conductor, Oskar Hackenberger continued the lively concert activity of his 36-man music corps both in summer and in winter, whereby not only the march music, but also the dance music and the string ensemble was in great demand with the audience. He also maintained personal contacts with the regiment chief, the future King Ludwig III. of Bavaria . In 1899 Hackenberger married Emma Morgenstern, with whom he had four children, three boys and a girl.

From October 1, 1908, Hackenberger acted as a substitute for the position of 2nd Army Music Officer, for which he was transferred to Berlin on March 24, 1909 and was finally appointed. From this moment on, Hackenberger and the 1st Army Music Inspector Professor Theodor Grawert were given the supervision of 380 music and trumpet corps in the Prussian Army , gave up his direct role as conductor and had to hand over his position as music master to Adolf Berdien , who later also served as Army Music Officer in the Wehrmacht . He also became a teacher of harmony and instrumentation at the Berlin Music Academy . In his function as a music inspector, Hackenberger was a military officer, but without authority and only with the right to make suggestions for the Prussian War Ministry , which did not even have a clerk who was specially tailored to the needs of military music. Only a small number of auxiliary staff, such as clerks or music duplicators, were available to the two army music officers. In addition, Grawert was the first army music inspector in the zenith of attention, because he was responsible for the musical design of the great tattoo at the imperial maneuvers and conducted all the major concerts. Hackenberger, on the other hand, was left with only little organizational but significant military-musical events such as leading the prelude to the 4th price marches, which the Scherl-Verlag accepted as part of a march competition for the magazine Die Woche . The presentation took place on January 31, 1912 in the presence of Wilhelm II in the courtyard of the Berlin City Palace . Hackenberger achieved his first major organizational and musical achievement at the beginning of 1914, when he had the first series of the part books with the voices of the 75 Prussian army marches printed together with Grawert for the needs of all army music corps. This measure came extremely timely, because the military orchestras had previously been dependent on the scores of the marches, which were often written by hand, and often not free from errors. Hackenberger edited these marches himself, and the Berlin publisher Bote & Bock took care of the printing and delivery of the scores to the regimental and battalion bands, but this was interrupted by the First World War.

First World War

During the First World War , the two most famous works by Oskar Hackenberger were created, namely the presentation march enemies all around and the parade march Germany high in honor with the song of the same name by Heinrich Hugo Pierson in a trio, which Hackenberger added to the Prussian army march collection in 1925 . The 1914 composed and its former regiment chief King Ludwig III. Enemies all around who were dedicated by Bavaria in 1915 , however, caused an emotional correspondence between Hackenberger and Hans Bußmeyer , director of the Royal Academy of Music in Munich , which was responsible for the appraisal of pieces presented and dedicated to the royal people. Above all, Bußmeyer's criticism was directed towards the clumsy harmony in the Trio des Marsches and the unnecessary transposition of the piano reduction into a different key for the military music score. Regardless of this, the march showed many good characteristics in form and instrumentation , which led to the acceptance of the dedication and the gift of Hackenberger. Although teaching at the university was stopped and resumed several times during the war, Hackenberger was not appointed professor until the end of 1918.

Reichswehr

After the Reichswehr was set up in 1919, Hackenberger resigned from the army because the small 100,000-man army had no need for a second stage manager position. Theodor Grawert again held the post of army or army music officer. Nevertheless, after Grawert's retirement on September 30, 1924, Hackenberger was reactivated in office and began a lively military musical activity. During his tenure, some prominent army marches of the former Bavarian army in 1925 were transferred to the Prussian army march collection , which practically grew into the all-German collection. In 1926 he resorted to his pre-war initiative and published the 2nd episode with the voices for a further 72 army marches and tattoos as well as arrangements of 60 army marches for salon and string orchestras. The editing of the 3rd episode with the cavalry marches was carried out by the former chief musician Gottlieb Spiegelberg in 1924-26 . In addition, he built the new German national anthem into the Great Zapfenstreich , which previously only ended with prayer, and gave this ceremony its current form. His organizational and concert activities did not diminish, which resulted in the organization of several tattoos and large concerts by the Reichswehr for the Berlin audience, especially in the German Stadium in Berlin . The concert repertoire traditionally included not only army marches, but also classical works such as opera arias and dances by Wagner and Liszt . However, the reduction in the number of music corps after 1919 also contributed to the fact that there was often a lack of woodwind instruments at large concerts, since the small holdings of Reichswehr music were mainly equipped with brass instruments. Furthermore, Professor Hackenberger also made recordings with various music corps of the Reichswehr as well as arrangements of the pieces from the film music for military music.

Oskar Hackenberger died on November 8, 1929 of a heart attack in a suburban train on the way to work.

Works

Works for wind orchestra

• 1914 enemies all around (Army March I, 107)
• 1915 Germany in high esteem (Army March II, 266)
• 1928 German Prayer (March)

literature

• Joachim-Toeche Mittler: Oskar Hackenberger . In: With sounding game 17 (3), 1994, pp. 126-132.
• Wolfgang Gaumert: Oskar Hackenberger and Bavaria. News on the Army March I, 107 . In: Mit klingendem Spiel 13 (2), (1990), pp. 84–91.

Web links

Audio samples

• Enemies all around on YouTube , recorded by Stadtmusik Wien; Head: Professor Gustav Fischer.
• Radetzky March on YouTube , recorded by the large Reichswehr military orchestra; Head: Army Music Inspector Oskar Hackenberger.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Musikinspicient . In: Heinz Busch: From the Army March to the Great Zapfenstreich. A lexicon on the history of German military music . Bonn 2005, p. 120.
2. ↑ Wolfgang Gaumert: Oskar Hackenberger and Bavaria. News on the Army March I, 107 . In: Mit klingendem Spiel 13 (2), (1990), pp. 85-89.
3. ^ Bernhard Höfele: The German military music. A contribution to their history . Cologne 1999, p. 185.