Robert Pessenlehner

Robert Pessenlehner (born May 16, 1899 in Alland , Lower Austria, † October 27, 1985 in Bad Hersfeld ) was an Austro-German conductor and music historian .

Robert Pessenlehner comes from a family of teachers. He first attended the Boys' Choir Convict of Heiligenkreuz Abbey , then the Kaiser Franz Josef Gymnasium in Baden near Vienna, where he graduated from high school in 1917 . 1917-18 he was a lieutenant in the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger in the war. Then he studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and in 1920, after graduating, became Kapellmeister at the Mozarteum Opera there. In 1921 he received the post of musical assistant to Landgrave Alexander Friedrich von Hessen . In addition, he studied from 1922 at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , where he in 1932 with one of Moritz Bauer supervised dissertation about Herrmann Hirschbach doctorate was.

In Frankfurt, Pessenlehner worked for music and music care at the Bund für Volksbildung and, when the "Bund" was transferred to National Socialist organizations in 1933, continued to do so until the outbreak of war in 1939. He joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1937 ( membership number 5.901.060), published the book Vom Wesen der Deutschen Musik and was a member of the advisory board of the Frankfurt University of Music from 1938 to 1945.

In this book he named the polyphony, the design and the use of syncope as essential features of German music and took the view: "The highest formal perfection in the works of all times and epochs can only be found in the works of German music art". He, who was promoted by a university professor of Jewish descent and who had obtained his doctorate through Hirschbach, now saw - following Richard Wagner - the “lack of artistic talent” as a “characteristic of the Jewish race”. Therefore, “there has not yet been a Jewish composer who had something of his own , in the best sense original, to say”.

After the war he lived in Heinsen near Lüneburg . In the summer of 1945 he established the symphony orchestra in the Heidestadt, at whose concerts he was a conductor until 1953. In 1953, Landgrave Philipp von Hessen commissioned Pessenlehner at Schloss Fasanerie to organize his books and archives. In addition, he led various choirs from 1954 and was from 1958 city archivist in Fulda and editor of the Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter (until 1974).

Fonts

• Herrmann Hirschbach, the critic and artist. A contribution to the history of the Schumann circle and the musical criticism in the first half of the XIX. Century . Bosse, Regenburg 1932.
• On the essence of German music . Bosse, Regensburg 1937.

literature

• Wolfgang Boetticher: "To be German means to seem unclear". Comments on a book "Vom Wesen der Deutschen Musik" , in: Die Musik 30, 1937–38, pp. 399–404.
• Gustav Wunderle: Publications by Dr. Robert Pessenlehner after 1956 , in: Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter, 50, 1974, pp. 85–91.
• Annkatrin Dahm: The Topos of the Jew. Studies on the history of anti-Semitism in German-language music literature , Göttingen 2007, pp. 337–342.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For the biography up to 1932 cf. the curriculum vitae in Robert Pessenlehner: Herrmann Hirschbach, the critic and artist. A contribution to the history of the Schumann circle and the musical criticism in the first half of the XIX. Century , Düren / Rhld. 1932.
2. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945 , self-published 2004, pp. 5159-5161.
3. ↑ Robert Pessenlehner: On the Nature of German music . Regensburg 1937, p. 85 - locked, 160–180, especially p. 162 and 179.
4. ^ On the birth of the Lüneburg Orchestra , in: Lüneburger Post, November 6, 1945; Erdmann Werner Böhme : Lüneburg - without its own cultural orchestra? as a memorandum to the Council of the City of Lüneburg at the same time with a review of the work of the "Lüneburg Symphony Orchestra" 1945-47 , Lüneburg 1947
5. ↑ Otto Berge: Dr. Robert Pessenlehner on his 75th birthday , in: Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter, 50, 1974, pp. 82–85; Ludwig Müller: Dr. Robert Pessenlehner on his 85th birthday , in: Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter, 60, 1984, pp. 1–2; on the history of the city archive cf. Archived copy ( memento of the original from August 18, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.