Otto Tomek

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Otto Tomek (born February 10, 1928 in Vienna , † February 18, 2013 in Schwetzingen ) was an Austrian music journalist and radio editor .

Life

Otto Tomek studied musicology in Vienna - where he received his doctorate in 1953 with the work The structure phenomenon of the disguised sentence a tre in the music of the 16th and 17th centuries - and then worked (1953–1957) as a lecturer at the music publisher Universal Edition in Vienna .

In 1957 he became editor for new music in Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), later head of the editorial group for new music, a position he held until 1971. In 1963 he took over the editorial management of the studio for electronic music . During this time a number of sensational productions were initiated and carried out by him. In the concert series Musik der Zeit (which still exists today) , important works were born, for example:

The fact that Tomek did not shy away from interventions in overcoming all conceivable difficulties is shown by his report, how he personally unbuttoned the score for the St. Luke Passion from Penderecki, who was notoriously late in delivery:

“Shortly before Christmas a couple of sheets came, but nothing could be seen from them. Then there was silence again. Nothing. Back then you couldn't just phone to Poland, you had to wait a day for a connection. I sent Penderecki a telegram almost every day: 'Where is it, what's going on?' Still no answer. […] I arrived in Krakow in the middle of winter, in deep snow. Penderecki stood on the runway, greeted me and said: 'Why are you so upset?' 'Well, you've got some nerve!' The score was finished except for a few places. [...] I flew home with the score under my arm. At customs I was asked: 'What is that?' ,Music.' 'Oh so ...' The best thing was: eight bars were missing in the soprano solo. Penderecki then sent them to the soloist by postcard. "

In 1971 Otto Tomek switched to the then Südwestfunk (SWF, today SWR) as head of the music department , where he designed the program as director of the Donaueschinger Musiktage (1971–1974) and founded the SWR experimental studio for acoustic art in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1971 .

In 1977 he became head of the music department at what was then Süddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR, now SWR) in Stuttgart. From 1977 to 1989 Tomek was artistic director of the Schwetzingen Festival .

Among other things, he was the editor of the anthology Igor Stravinsky (Cologne: WDR 1963), editor-in-chief of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (1967–1978), and of Teilton - series of publications by the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of Südwestfunk (1978–1989; 6 volumes) .

In 1990 he was involved in the founding of the LernRadio institute at the Karlsruhe University of Music, which aims to train radio journalists in the field of music.

Essays / Articles

  • Indispensable for the profile of our time. On the epitaph for Karl Amadeus Hartmann , in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 1967, pp. 34–35
  • Find solutions for our time. A conversation with Pierre Boulez , in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 1971, pp. 62–68
  • [On the death of] Igor Stravinsky , in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 1971, p. 230
  • Lebanon - With the cable car to the concert hall , in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 1970, p. 73 (about the four "Concerts speleophoniques" by Karlheinz Stockhausen in the caves of Jeita / Beirut)
  • New tracks? , in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 1973, p. 72
  • Musica viva activities at radio stations (1976), in: Teilton 3, Kassel 1980
  • New Music in Cologne 1945–1971 , in: FX Ohnesorg (ed.), The Liberation of Music - An Introduction to the Music of the 20th Century , Bergisch Gladbach: Lübbe 1994
  • Nothing new in Darmstadt? Legend and Reality , in: Rudolf Stephan / Lothar Knessl / Otto Tomek [et al.] (Eds.), From Kranichstein to the present 1946-1996, 50 Years of Darmstadt Summer Courses , pp. 299–307, Darmstadt: Daco 1996
  • “That doesn't exist, we do that!” - Review by an editor (conversation with Kornelia Bittmann), in: Musik der Zeit 1951–2001 , pp. 163–167

literature

  • Music from the period 1951–2001. 50 years of new music in WDR. Essays - Memories - Documentation . Edited by Frank Hilberg and Harry Vogt. Hofheim 2002, Wolke Verlag. ISBN 3-923997-98-1 .
  • Hans-Peter Jahn, Otto Tomek. Radio and new music . Hofheim 2018, Wolke Verlag. ISBN 978-3-95593-088-2

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Otto Tomek, “There's no such thing, we do that!” - Review by an editor (conversation with Kornelia Bittmann), in: Musik der Zeit 1951–2001 , pp. 163–167, here p. 165
personal data
SURNAME Tomek, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian music journalist and radio editor
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 2013
Place of death Schwetzingen