Peter Girth

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Peter Girth in his private house, the "Casa da Ponte", in Georgenhausen near Darmstadt

Peter Girth (born June 23, 1942 in Olomouc , Moravia ; † July 15, 1997 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German artistic director and cultural manager.

Life

The trained cellist (trained by Zara Nelsova at the Juilliard School of Music, New York, among others ) studied law in Frankfurt and did his doctorate on the copyright issue of musical improvisation. He also studied sociology with Theodor W. Adorno . He worked as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law, as a lawyer and from 1976 to 1978 as Managing Director of the German Orchestra Association, before he was appointed to Berlin by Herbert von Karajan . In 1978 he took over the management of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra ( Berliner Philharmoniker ), for which he - from 1980 together with the music dramaturge Klaus Schultz - developed a new program concept for the Philharmonic programs and designed the centenary of the orchestra's centenary. When he signed the trial year contract for the solo clarinetist Sabine Meyer there in January 1983 , the worst crisis between Karajan and the orchestra was triggered. As a result, Peter Girth was given leave of absence in the summer of 1984 and had to leave the orchestra. He initially worked as a freelancer in Munich.

In the 1985/1986 season he became artistic director of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra . In addition to the subscription concerts of the orchestra, he established an extensive program of events with the two main focuses “Youth + New Music”. At the same time, he took on artistic and organizational responsibility for musical life in Düsseldorf. a. for the Messiaen Festival in 1986 as well as the Rheinische Musikfest and the Schumann Festival in 1988. In 1986 he was awarded the Norbert Burgmüller plaque for his services to Düsseldorf's musical life.

In 1988 he reconstructed - together with the musicologist Albrecht Dümling - the Düsseldorf exhibition Degenerate Music from 1938. This annotated reconstruction has since been shown worldwide: The USA version from 1991 was shown in the Los Angeles Music Center in New York (Bard Music Festival), Boston ( Brandeis University ), London ( Royal Festival Hall ), Barcelona ( L'Auditori ), Miami (Symphony of the West), Chicago (Ravinia Festival) and Tel Aviv (University Library). In 2007 Albrecht Dümling developed a Spanish version as well as a new German version under the title The Suspicious Saxophone .

In 1989, alongside James Levine and Christoph von Dohnányi, he was one of the founding members of the Alexander Zemlinsky Fund at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien. For the composer's widow, Louise von Zemlinsky, he had acted as an agent for GEMA and Universal Edition Vienna since 1982 .

From 1991 to 1996 Peter Girth was director of the Staatstheater Darmstadt , where he was responsible for world premieres such as Morel's invention by Reinhard Febel (directed by Claus Guth , 1994) and Nostalgie by Alexis Weissenberg (directed by Helfrid Foron, 1992). In 1995, the double evening of Beethoven's Fidelio and Luigi Nono's Intolleranza 1960 (director: Werner Schroeter , musical director: GMD Marc Albrecht ) took place at the Staatstheater Darmstadt, one of the most important opera projects of his directorship.

Peter Girth died in Frankfurt am Main on July 15, 1997 after a long illness.

family

His first marriage was to the singer Renate Greiner, the children Christoph and Friederike live in Berlin. In 1996 he married his longtime partner, the cultural manager Medi Gasteiner.

estate

Peter Girth left behind numerous, as yet unpublished manuscripts. His time as director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra ( Berliner Philharmoniker ) with Herbert von Karajan he processed in his play Maestro . He was no longer able to complete an opera libretto about the life of Lorenzo da Ponte , Venetian Roulette - the first act is available, the composition of which Wilfried Maria Danner had already begun. Other writings include: Jeremy - Erzählung für Kinder (1987), Die Filippinische Karotte und Joseph Haydn (1987) and the adaptation of the original version in English and German of Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1988).

Publications

  • The Artistic Aspect of the Computer - A Copyright Contemplation , Film, and Law No. 7/1974.
  • Individuality and chance in copyright law , Berlin: Schweitzer 1974.
  • Mannheim and the arts of peace , Bonn-Bad Godesberg: Forberg 1979.
  • Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 1882–1982. Philharmonic Almanac I and II , edited by Peter Girth and Klaus Schultz , Berlin / Bonn: Westkreuz Druckerei 1982 and 1983.
  • It is impossible to please everyone - Comments on the programming of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra , Berlin: Annual preview of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 1983/84.
  • Music, patrons, marketing, marketing , special issue October 1987.
  • Degenerate music. An annotated reconstruction for the Düsseldorf exhibition in 1938 , Ed. Albrecht Dümling u. Peter Girth, cat.Dusseldorf 1988, 2nd edition 1988, 3rd revised and expanded edition 1993.
  • Every city has the orchestra it really deserves . DIE WELT, February 25, 1988 TONHALLEmagazin No. 8 (March – April) / 1988, p. 567 f.
  • The first of all music workers . Ceremonial speech on the award of the German Record Prize and the Golden Badge of Honor to Herbert von Karajan on August 28, 1988 in Düsseldorf, TONHALLEmagazin No. 2 (October) / 1988, p. 153 ff.
  • Degenerate Music - One year later , TONHALLEmagazin No. 6 (February) / 1989, p. 410 f.
  • An orchestra celebrates a birthday. Düsseldorfer Symphoniker 1864–1989 , Ed. Peter Girth, Düsseldorf: dkv 1989.
  • Play with Mozart . Board and dice game for the Mozart Marathon Düsseldorf 1989.
  • The Auditor arrives , The Week June 23, 1994.
  • Pictures and memories, Staatstheater Darmstadt 1991–1996 , edited by Peter Girth. Darmstadt, June 1996. Idea, conception and design: Peter Girth. Photographs: Barbara Aumüller

Lectures

  • Musical Avantgarde and Politics. European Aspects of a further Instance of Repression (musical avant-garde and politics, European aspects of a repressed history). Lecture for the Getty Foundation on February 26, 1990 in Los Angeles.
  • Marketing of publicly subsidized art and culture in Germany . Lecture in Glasgow 1990.
  • Beautiful spots - art or kitsch. Notes on the music of Gustav Mahler , lecture at the Mahler Symposium in Toblach, July 21, 1995.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c An orchestra celebrates its birthday. Düsseldorfer Symphoniker 1864–1989 , Ed. Peter Girth, Düsseldorf: dkv 1989, p. 249.
  2. ↑ Hellmut Stern : Saitensprünge (Berlin 1990, pp. 210–224)
  3. ↑ Düsseldorfer Symphoniker. Annual previews 1986/87 and 1987/88
  4. ↑ Düsseldorf. Civil society . Edmund Spohr u. Hatto Beyerle, Kleve: BOSS 2002, p. 312.
  5. ↑ Degenerate Music. An annotated reconstruction for the Düsseldorf exhibition in 1938 , Ed. Albrecht Dümling u. Peter Girth, cat.Dusseldorf 1988
  6. ↑ Albrecht Dümling: Approaches to a repressed chapter. On the path of the exhibition “Degenerate Music” 1988–1997. For Peter Girth , nmz 12/97 - 46th vol.
  7. ^ The suspicious saxophone. "Degenerate Music" in the Nazi state. Documentation and commentary , Ed. Albrecht Dümling, Berlin / Düsseldorf 2007
personal data
SURNAME Girth, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artistic director and cultural manager
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Olomouc , Moravia
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1997
Place of death Frankfurt am Main