Rio Gebhardt

Rio Gebhardt (born November 1, 1907 in Heilbronn ; † June 24, 1944 ) was a German pianist, conductor and composer.

Life

Rio Gebhardt was born as Julius Rigo Gebhardt in Otto Gutbrod's private women's clinic in Heilbronn, because his parents, the singers Julius Gebhardt and Maria Anna Haupt, were performing at the Kilianshallen with their touring theater Tegernseer Nachtigallen at that time . The child was taken on further trips; His talent for conducting was allegedly discovered in 1911 when the four-year-old was seen "conducting" a gypsy band in Monte Carlo with a lemon spoon. The father then decided to market his son as a child prodigy , acquired skills in conducting himself and practiced conducting to gramophone music with the boy behind closed doors, with wine bottles being used as a substitute for the instrument groups of an orchestra. The child's performances did not necessarily meet with enthusiasm among experts, but his uncle Karl Gille , Hofkapellmeister in Hanover , discovered that Rio Gebhardt must have real musical talent and made sure that he received piano lessons. Nevertheless, Gebhardt continued to appear as a conducting prodigy, including in Russia. For 1915, however, the - irregular - visit to the Stern Conservatory in Berlin is documented. From 1918 to 1920 Rio Gebhardt studied harmony and score playing with Paul Scheinpflug , and he also apparently attended courses with Robert Kahn .

In the 1920s he belonged to a group of "child prodigies" on which the psychologist Franziska Baumgarten carried out studies that later appeared in the book Wunderkinder. Psychological studies from 1930 were utilized. She stated: "He has an extremely lively imagination, his intelligence does not seem to be above average."

In 1922 Rio Gebhardt studied in Zurich , where he particularly attended the orchestra rehearsals under Volkmar Andreae . At this time, his younger brother Ferry , who had spent the first eight years of his life in a foster family, had also joined him; a concert program includes him as a pianist and Rio Gebhardt as a conductor and composer. The family had settled in Berlin in 1917 and Rio and Ferry Gebhardt played over 500 concerts at home and abroad in the years that followed.

From 1923 Rio Gebhardt studied with Kurt Weill ; he earned the money to live as a pianist in a salon chapel . Two years later he made contact with the publisher Wilhelm Zimmermann , who was to become his main publisher and financier. While Zimmermann turned to jazz from the mid-1920s , under pressure from the National Socialists he changed his musical focus and concentrated on light music for the radio.

Rio Gebhardt's early compositions included four piano pieces, a concertino for piano and orchestra and three longing songs by Ernst Lange for alto voice with orchestra. Gebhardt conducted in 1928 after finishing his studies at Weill in all performances except the premiere of his music to Leo Lanias piece boom , which was canceled, however, after three months. At the beginning of 1929 he became assistant répétiteur at the Cologne Opera, and in the summer of the same year he returned to Berlin.

After the ERKLA (First Piano Quartet) founded in 1927 with Adam Gelbtrunk , Alexander Zakin and Leopold Mittmann had not existed very long, Gebhardt founded a piano trio called Ri-Ro-Ru in 1929. In addition to himself, Günther Radtke and Hans Rhode belonged to this formation, which performed primarily in cinemas and similar institutions. With a somewhat more serious program than the previous jazz potpourri, the trio also earned recognition from the Berlin music press in 1931. In the same year Gebhardt tried to round off his education by attending courses in music history and sent Franziska Baumgarten his handwritten memoirs, which were published in the essay The career of a child prodigy . In 1932, under Gebhardt's name, a jazz piano school with the title The New Piano Virtuosity was published. It was reissued several times. The main educational part does not come from Gebhardt, but from Alfred Baresel . With Baresel, Gebhardt had recorded the Blues pathétique and Fox gymnastique in 1932 , which were also published in this piano school. These works have been described by the contemporary press as "nasty and flat, sophisticated music".

The Concert in E flat, published by Zimmermann in 1932, was better received . It quoted passages from George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and the Concerto in F and brought Gebhardt, at least in the description of his publisher, the reputation of a “German Gershwin”. In other works, Gebhardt oriented himself more towards the style of Billy Mayerl . The Concert in Es was recorded on February 17, 1941 with Rudolf Ehrecke and the Orchestra of the German Television Broadcasting Corporation and the composer as conductors, after radio productions had been postponed for years.

While he was waiting for a job with the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk-AG (Mirag), Gebhardt was able to premier his operetta Das Schloss an der Adria with a libretto by Josef Weiser in Chemnitz . Instead of the Mirag, Gebhardt was finally employed by the Reichsender in Hamburg . His works were often played on the radio in the years that followed, such as the Festival of the Infanta in 1934 or the ballet suite From the Toy Box of 1937. The influences of jazz were largely lost in Gebhardt's compositions during these years. In 1937 he became the first music supervisor at Deutsche Bildfunk in Berlin; three years later he composed the first original music for a German television play with Kabinett Fulero . This adaptation of the play Die Krone by Doris Riehmer and Op gen Orth was broadcast on October 31, 1940. Gebhardt wrote another film music for Das brave Schneiderlein in 1941. Probably the last world premiere of a Gebhardt work during wartime took place on October 23, 1941 instead of. The concert overture received positive reviews on various occasions, but did not bring its author a certificate of indispensability: Rio Gebhardt was drafted into military service and came to Russia, while his wife Ada and his children stayed in Berlin. Initially spared from being deployed at the front, Gebhardt was still able to work on a medieval suite . His hope of being transferred to the Münchhausen propaganda company , however, was not fulfilled. Gebhardt fell on June 24, 1944 on the Eastern Front.

Aftermath

In 1967, on the occasion of Gebhardt's 60th birthday, Zimmermann published a publication about the composer. The author was possibly Zimmermann's authorized signatory Erich Höffner. When upscale popular music went out of fashion, Gebhardt's works were largely forgotten. On the 50th anniversary of his death, Günther Emig created a large exhibition in the Heilbronn city library in 1994, in which many unknown documents from the family could be shown. Günther Emig published an accompanying booklet in which the previously known knowledge was presented in context for the first time. This publication was reissued in 2007; since October 2014 it has been expanded to include a discography, and is also available as an e-book. Gebhardt's biography was published in 2011 as part of the Heilbronner Köpfe series .

literature

• Günther Emig : Born in the vaudeville while passing through. The boy wonder from Heilbronn. The master conductor Rio Gebhardt. In: Heilbronn voice. March 6, 1993, Wochenmagazin, p. 1.
• ders .: Child prodigies! Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) and his brother Ferry (1909-1989). Brochure for the exhibition in the Heilbronn city library in 1994. - New edition Niederstetten 2007.
• Lothar Heinle: “A German Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944). In: Christhard Schrenk (Ed.): Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , pp. 9–32

Web links

• Rio Gebhardt , Heilbronn City Archives
• Sheet music database
• Literature by and about Rio Gebhardt in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lothar Heinle, “Ein deutscher Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here p. 9
2. ↑ Lothar Heinle, “Ein deutscher Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (Ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here pp. 11-13
3. ↑ Lothar Heinle, “Ein deutscher Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (Ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here p. 14
4. ↑ quoted from: Lothar Heinle, “Ein deutscher Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpf VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p 9–32, here p. 14
5. ↑ Lothar Heinle, “Ein deutscher Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here p. 16
6. ↑ Lothar Heinle, “Ein deutscher Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here p. 17
7. ↑ Lothar Heinle, “Ein deutscher Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here p. 21
8. ↑ quoted from: Lothar Heinle, “Ein deutscher Gershwin!” Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpf VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p 9–32, here p. 21
9. ↑ Lothar Heinle, "Ein deutscher Gershwin!" Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here p. 21 f.
10. ↑ Lothar Heinle, "Ein deutscher Gershwin!" Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here p. 30
11. ↑ Exhibition report : "Heilbronn City Library:" Wunderkinder "Rio Gebhardt and his brother Ferry. Fine gentlemen on the piano." In: Heilbronner Voice, July 29, 1994, p. 14
12. ↑ Lothar Heinle, "Ein deutscher Gershwin!" Rio Gebhardt (1907-1944) , in: Christhard Schrenk (ed.), Heilbronner Köpfe VI , Heilbronn City Archives 2011, ISBN 978-3-940646-08-8 , p. 9– 32, here p. 31 f.