Rolf Lukowsky

Rolf (Rudolf) Lukowsky (born July 14, 1926 ) is a German composer and choir director .

Youth and education

Lukowsky's father Josef was the organist and choirmaster at the Catholic St. Petrus Church in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen. As a student, Rolf sang in the St. Hedwig Cathedral Choir and in the choir of the Berlin State Opera . At the instigation of his father, he did not become a member of the Hitler Youth or the Jungvolks , but of the Catholic youth organizations Quickborn and New Germany . After primary school, he attended the Canisius College in Berlin until it closed in 1940 . After completing the Reich Labor Service , he volunteered as a reserve officer . Because of a disciplinary misconduct, he was not promoted to NCO, which, according to his own assessment , saved him from being deployed on the Eastern Front during World War II .

After the end of the war, the family found accommodation in Saxony-Anhalt . Lukowsky joined the FDJ and trained as a new teacher . In 1948 he founded a pioneer choir . From 1950 to 1956 he directed the Buna Choir in Halle .

In 1954 he began a two-year course in music education for the upper school at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg . His teachers included Max Schneider , Walther Siegmund-Schultze , Siegfried Bimberg and Fritz Reuter . With Siegfried Bimberg (1927–2008) and Friedrich Krell (* 1928), the Institute for Music Education there produced two other graduates who later had an impact on choral music in the GDR.

Further career

In 1956 he became a member of the SED . 50 years later, he describes his political stance as follows:

“... let's put it this way: I think socialist. However, under other circumstances I would probably never have become a socialist or a communist ... If I had gone to Bonn to study medicine after the war, things would have developed completely differently. "

In the same year he followed his composition professor Fritz Reuter to the Humboldt University in Berlin and began an aspirantur , which ended in 1959 with a doctorate . At the same time, he taught music theory , folk song studies and choral conducting to students . During this time he also founded the chamber choir of the Institute for Music Education. He finished another aspirantur in 1961 with his habilitation and was then appointed lecturer for music theory and university music director. In concerts with the choirs of the university and the Collegium musicum instrumentale, which he also founded, he performed classical compositions as well as his own compositions and works by other contemporary artists, as well as making recordings for record, radio and television.

In 1964 he stopped teaching and turned to other areas of focus. He became chairman of the Berlin Composers' Association. Since the end of the 1950s he had been working in a responsible position on the federal executive board of the FDGB , including as editor-in-chief of the FDGB song sheets and musical organizer of the workers' festival that has been held since 1959 . In this context he met the singer and actor Ernst Busch in 1965 , whereupon a close musical collaboration developed that lasted until his death. Lukowsky arranged and composed for Busch, rehearsed with him and accompanied him as a pianist and conductor during performances and recordings.

In addition to these various obligations, he still found time for productive compositional work. His first song, "Fleißig, nur diligent, you girls and boys" was released around 1949. During his activity at the HU, several cantatas and choir cycles were written, which he performed and recorded with his ensembles. In addition, he wrote many commissioned works for the choir of the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Oberschule Wernigerode , led by Friedrich Krell , including the cantata “We are looking forward to the wind of tomorrow”, which was premiered in 1963 (text: Rainer Kirsch ). These compositions were mostly intended for official occasions and accordingly had a pro-socialist, state-supporting content. Even after the end of the GDR, his numerous arrangements of folk songs in different degrees of difficulty enjoy lasting popularity, which were widely used through recordings, among other things. After 1990, sacred texts were also set to music.

In an interview, he describes his work during these years as follows:

“I made at least five or six sound recordings per week with my own choirs on the radio or on the “ record ” . In addition, I prepared ten to twenty recordings every month for the radio youth choir in Wernigerode, mainly with my own things, and, if necessary, produced basic tapes with an orchestra. Then Busch came with about four to six appointments a month. [...] And in between I sat at home and wrote notes ... "

Trivia

Lukowsky's father Josef (1896–1973), a student of Carl Thiel , was also a choirmaster and composer and, like his son later, held a lectureship at Humboldt University. Lukowsky is married and lives in Bernau near Berlin. According to his own account, he buys and owns "all the songbooks there are".

In 1983 he received the National Prize of the GDR III. Class for art and literature, 1987 the Goethe Prize of the city of Berlin .

Works (selection)

Songs

• Winter song (snow falls on the streets)

Song editing

• It will be evening again
• When we were recently in Regensburg
• The graceful, beautiful white
• The Heidenröslein
• Loving brings great joy
• the moon has risen
• The tailor's anniversary
• A ship comes loaded
• HOTA, Kathreinerle
• Come here, O you believers
• Listen what's coming in from outside
• In the most beautiful meadow
• Softly pulls through my mind
• Times are not bad
• Most beautiful evening star
• I know a flower blue
• When all the fountains flow
• How beautifully the May blooms for us

Secular works

• Spread yourselves shining in the blue
• Eisler quotes based on sayings and a twelve-tone series by the composer Hanns Eisler
• Song of the class enemy
• Sine musica nulla vita
• We look forward to the wind of tomorrow (cantata)

Spiritual works

• Ave Maria
• Missa vocale Romanum
• Father noster
• Salve, Regina

Web links

Audio samples

• "When we were recently in Regensburg" (arrangement)
• "The day goes with a quiet step" (choirmaster)

Sources and evidence

• Works by and about Rolf Lukowsky in the catalog of the German National Library

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Portrait of Rudolf Lukowsky at edition choris mundi
2. ↑ ^{a b} Portrait of Josef Lukowsky at edition choris mundi
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Interview on reminiscence.de ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 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.