Otto Besch

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Otto Besch (born February 14, 1885 in Neuhausen , East Prussia ; † May 2, 1966 in Kassel ) was a German composer and music critic .

Life

As the son of a pastor, Besch attended the Royal Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Königsberg (Prussia) . After graduating from high school, he studied theology at the Albertus University in Königsberg . After the state examination, he turned completely to music. He studied in Königsberg (Prussia) with Otto Fiebach and in Berlin with Philipp Rüfer at the Stern Conservatory . From 1910 to 1914 he was a master student of Engelbert Humperdinck at the Academy of Arts (Berlin) .

In the difficult time after the First World War , Besch first worked as a music critic for the Hartungschen Zeitung , then for the Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung (1922–1939). He also led a composition class at the Königsberg Conservatory . As a music writer, he also worked for various specialist journals and foreign daily newspapers. During this time he got to know important musicians like Igor Stravinsky , Richard Strauss , Wilhelm Furtwängler and Max Reger .

In the Battle of East Prussia , he fled to Denmark at the end of January 1945 , where he lived with his family in an internment camp until autumn 1947 . He gave lectures on music in the various refugee camps .

After his release, Besch first lived in Neuengamme near Hamburg and worked as a music critic for the daily newspaper DIE WELT and the news agency dpa . He advised the NDR in his music programs. Although Wilhelm Furtwängler , Hermann Scherchen and Eugen Jochum spoke out personally for him, “the refugee” stayed in unfamiliar surroundings for years in subordinate and poorly paid positions. In 1951 Besch moved to Geesthacht on the Elbe. A year later he went with his family to his wife's home in North Hesse , where he died in Harleshausen at the age of 81 .

“My music is inconceivable without the magic of the East Prussian landscape; it owes its origin to it, its breath fills it down to the smallest traits. "

- Otto Besch

Compositions

Besch composed works for piano, chamber music of various instrumentation (including three important string quartets ), orchestral works from smaller instrumentation to the Sinfonietta for large orchestra. After the Second World War , East Prussia, the basis of Besch's life's work as a composer, was destroyed. Numerous well-known conductors , who had campaigned for his works in many performances before the war and also during the war, had retired from concert life or had to gain a foothold themselves again; some, like Hermann Scherchen from Königsberg , were meanwhile living abroad. Like the whole culture of the German East , Besch's works were sent into oblivion.

As a boy, Besch appreciated the literary and musicological works of ETA Hoffmann . He had taken the libretto of his Hoffmann opera from the biography and three novellas by ETA Hoffmann. He considered the opera to be his “most ingenious work” and believed that “it would make him famous one day - but only in a hundred years, when the time is right” . To this day, the “Fantastic Opera in Two Acts (5 images)” has not been performed.

“From the romanticism, which had initially dominated me strongly, I came more and more to the polyphonic style. The general major return to baroque counterpoint did not leave me unaffected. ... [After the war] I renounced romanticism. Everything that arose after the last war is more in tune with a clear and logically spun out play of lines, the tonal language has become tart and tends more towards lively motor skills than emotionally emphasized pathos. "

- Otto Besch

Erwin Kroll sees Besch as a “worthy disciple of a Schumann, Brahms and Pfitzner between romanticism and the present” . For the choir conductor Heinz von Schumann , Besch was “hushed up”.

Orchestral works

  • Hoffmann Overture (performed in 1920 at the Tonkünstlerfest in Weimar)
  • From an old town. Five pieces for chamber orchestra , 1955
  • Curonian Suite , 1934
  • East Prussian Dances , 1936
  • East Prussian picture book , 1937–1938
  • Concerto for orchestra , 1941–1942
  • Samland idyll (ended after the Second World War)
  • Divertimento for small orchestra , 1943
  • Sinfonietta , 1958
  • Sinfonietta II , 1960 (unfinished)

Chamber music

  • String Quartet , 1935
  • String Quartet , 1947
  • String quartet , 1953
  • Trio for piano, violin and violoncello , 1960–1961
  • Midsummer song for four string instruments in one movement , 1913

Vocal works

  • Five songs based on texts by Richard Dehmel , 1928
  • Two motets based on texts from the Bible for four-part choir , 1938
  • Five songs for mezzo-soprano voice and piano based on poems by Agnes Miegel, 1957
  • Four songs based on texts by Agnes Miegel, 1961
  • Marienlied . Berlin, Wiesbaden 1964
  • Hymn to the Lost , 1963
  • Three songs in the folk tone for four-part mixed choir , 1965

Opera

  • ETA Hoffmann (1940–1945)

piano

  • Sonata , 1920
  • Triptych , 1952
  • Piano sonata in one movement , 1956
  • Piano Sonata , 1960

Others

  • Esslinger Tower Music , 1954
  • Violin Sonata , 1958
  • Violin piano sonata , 1958
  • Prelude for Organ

Compositions lost in World War II

  • Sonata for violin and piano , 1911
  • Comedy overture for orchestra , 1912
  • Piano trio , 1919 (performed by Schröder, Wieck and Klemm)
  • Arms Ninetta , opera in one act (performed in Koenigsberg 1926)
  • Orchestra prelude , 1927
  • Advent cantata for mixed choir, baritone, soprano and orchestra
  • Resurrection Cantata, Requiem (performed 1930–1931 under Bruno Vondenhoff in Königsberg and in 1934 during the Nuremberg Singing Week)
  • Concerto for organ and orchestra , 1932
  • Christmas Mystery , 1933
  • Music for orchestra , 1937
  • Ostmark-Overture , 1938 (performed at the Musiktage in Düsseldorf)

Available recordings

  • Chamber music and songs . Laumann, Dülmen 1986 (with piano trio , triptych for piano , string quartet 1953 , voice in the dark based on texts by Richard Dehmel, five songs for mezzo-soprano and piano based on texts by Agnes Miegel)
  • Martin Weyer plays organ music from Pomerania, West and East Prussia (with a prelude for organ ). Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Freiburg im Breisgau 1989
  • Reflections . Music production Dabringhaus and Grimm, Detmold 1995 (with string quartet Midsummer Song )

estate

Otto Besch's estate was guarded by his wife Erika and son Aribert and left to the Bavarian State Library in Munich .

Publications

  • Memories , 1960 (edited by Erika Besch with a foreword by Erwin Kroll, Kassel 1973)
  • Engelbert Humperdinck , 1914 (Reprint Kessinger Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1165339839 )
  • with Ruth Maria Wagner: Memories of East Prussia: 1890–1945 . Leer 1992, ISBN 3792104911

Honors

Quotes

"Nobody like Otto Besch is able to capture the magic of Samland summer nights, the sunburn over the heather and moor, the rustling of dark forests, the waves crashing on the Baltic Sea coast, the murmuring of old legends, and village life with games and dance."

- Karlheinz Grube

"Besch will go down in music history as the most important East Prussian composer of the first half of the 20th century, and more than that: through his music he saved a piece of lost homeland for us, for our hearts."

- Erwin Kroll

"There is no question that Otto Besch is among the living East Prussian composers next to Heinz Tiessen the strongest, most inner, most imaginative talent, a musician who does not allow himself to be carried away by the current of the 'world', an artist who avoids any fashion business."

- L. Radok, 1955

Literature and lexical entries

  • Erwin Kroll : Music City Königsberg , Freiburg im Breisgau 1966
  • Hans Joachim Moser (ed.): Music dictionary . Hamburg 1955
  • Willibald Gurlitt (ed.): Riemann-Musiklexikon . Mainz 1959
  • Reiner F. Moritz (ed.): Knaurs Musiklexikon . Munich 1989

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Artemio Focher (University of Pavia): "ETA Hoffmann" - un´ opera lirica inedita di Otto Besch . Nuova Rivista Musicale 1/2006, pp. 27-45.
  2. ↑ Erwin Kroll: Unlifted Treasures . The Ostpreußenblatt, January 20, 1968
  3. ^ For Alfred Einstein the most beautiful piece, the Marienlied came from the Advent cantata , which was premiered with great success at the Tonkünstlerfest in Königsberg under Hermann Scherchen in 1939 . The score was lost due to the war. Besch rewrote the Marienlied from memory for soprano and piano with 2nd soprano or children's choir and in an orchestral version (which can be borrowed).
  4. ↑ First performance in 1955 by Hans-Erich Riebensahm in Duisburg
personal data
SURNAME Besch, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and music critic
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuhausen
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1966
Place of death kassel