Peter Dahm

Peter Dahm

Peter Dahm (born March 28, 1877 in Aegidienberg ; † February 2, 1947 there ) was a German pianist and university professor .

Life

Peter Dahm received his first piano lessons from Carl Rudisch in Linz am Rhein . In 1893 he continued his studies at the Conservatory in Cologne , where he also took violin lessons from Joseph Schwartz. Franz Wüllner then pulled him a. a. approached the Gürzenich Concerts as a violist . In this way, the young Dahm took part in concerts conducted by Richard Strauss , Vincent d'Indy , Felix Weingartner and other famous conductors of the time.

In his piano major, he became a student of Max van de Sandt, who had been a student of Franz Liszt . As a pianist he gave concerts with works by Bach , Beethoven , Schubert , Liszt a. a., who made him known beyond the borders of Germany. Concert tours in the Netherlands and Switzerland brought him further extraordinary successes. At the beginning of the 20th century he was considered one of the leading piano players. In 1903 Fritz Steinbach gave him the position of main lecturer for piano at the Cologne Conservatory.

For pedagogical reasons, Dahm renounced a pianistic career and devoted himself to a career as a musician. He developed a systematic teaching method in his specialty previously treated improvisationally. He was the first to introduce the “natural” piano technique in West Germany, despite various opposition, which he consciously adopted after studying Breithaupt 's teachings and thus helped it to gain general recognition.

When the Cologne Conservatory became the Staatliche Musikhochschule Köln in 1925 , Peter Dahm received a professorship at this institution, where he trained a large number of important students over many years, such as a. Karlrobert Kreiten , Gustav Classens , Bruno Vondenhoff and Fritz Zaun .

In 1944 Peter Dahm retired, which he spent in his hometown Aegidienberg ( Siebengebirge ).

literature

• Rheinische Musik- u. Theater newspaper from September 22, 1928.
• German Musicians Lexicon . Ed .: Erich H. Müller. Dresden 1929, p. 211.
• Rhenish musicians . Ed .: Karl Gustav Fellerer. 4th episode, Cologne 1966, pp. 18-19.