Rudolf Müller-Chappuis

Rudolf Müller-Chappuis (born January 3, 1905 in Liedolsheim (now part of Dettenheim in the Karlsruhe district ); † December 8, 1968 in Mannheim ) was a German pianist , piano teacher and writer .

Career

Rudolf Müller-Chappuis was born the son of the elementary school teacher Rudolf Müller (1877–1915). The mother Jeanne geb. Chappuis (1884–1931) came from French-speaking Switzerland on Lake Geneva . He spent the first ten years of his life with parents and three younger siblings (one brother and two sisters) in Lipburg (now part of Badenweiler ) in the southern Black Forest. A third sister died shortly after giving birth. The children grew up bilingual. The early death of the parents had a strong influence on the mental development of the child or the young artist.

Müller-Chappuis attended elementary school in Lipburg from 1911 to 1914 and, after the family moved to Heidelberg, the grammar school (1915-1921), which he left with the secondary school leaving certificate. From 1915 to 1925 he received private piano and theory lessons from Mina Tobler in Heidelberg . The training was continued from 1925 to 1926 with Conrad Ansorge and his wife Margarete at the Conservatory of Music Klindworth-Scharwenka in Berlin. In the winter semester of 1926, Müller-Chappuis was a student in Wilhelm Kempff's piano class at the Württemberg University of Music in Stuttgart.

First concert engagements followed. a. in Freiburg, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Frankfurt. Müller-Chappuis was a frequent guest on the radio (Saarbrücken, Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, Bremen).

Müller-Chappuis lived in Heidelberg from 1931 to 1934, in Wuppertal from 1934 to June 1938, in 1938 for a short time in Freiburg im Breisgau , from 1942 to 1944 in Metz , then again in Heidelberg. He moved to Seckenheim in the mid-1950s , where he lived until his death in a summer house that his sister had made available to him.

As part of an exchange program, Müller-Chappuis taught a piano training class and gave concerts from autumn 1938 to June 1941 at the school of the Nishi Hongan-ji temple in Kyoto . After the end of the teaching contract, he returned to Europe. From summer 1941 to the end of 1942 he made guest appearances in various European cities and devoted himself to radio and record recordings.

From 1942 to the end of 1944, during the time of the German occupation of Lorraine, Müller-Chappuis taught at the Conservatoire de musique in Metz and also gave concerts. He left the city in the final phase of the Battle of Metz in September 1944 and returned to Heidelberg. From here he developed a lively concert activity. In Mannheim-Seckenheim he wrote his writings, which are strongly autobiographical and committed to the ideal of a simple humanity shaped by Eastern philosophy.

The last years of life were marked by illness. The outbreak of polyarthritis made the concert impossible, so that material hardship also arose.

Rudolf Müller-Chappuis rested in the Neuenheim cemetery in Heidelberg until his grave was abandoned.

Grave of Rudolf Müller-Chappuis and his parents in the Neuenheim cemetery in Heidelberg. The grave has since been abandoned.

The interpreter and teacher

The repertoire of Müller-Chappuis mainly comprised works by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin. He also devoted himself to the work of Gabriel Fauré and the works of Jean-Philippe Rameau , François Couperin and other representatives of the old French harpsichord music, which he played in arrangements and as far as possible in the original version. Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti have also been part of his programs time and again. In 1934 Müller-Chappuis played the world premiere of Gerhard Frommel in Heidelberg : First Piano Sonata in F sharp minor, Op. 6 (1930).

Rudolf Müller-Chappuis' style of interpretation was characterized by sensitivity and inwardness without slipping into the sentimental. Like his teacher Conrad Ansorge, it was alien to him to demonstrate virtuosity as an end in itself. He particularly appreciated the game of Conrad Ansorge , Eduard Erdmann , Dinu Lipatti and Clara Haskil .

The speaking game in the service of sound speech was a hallmark of Müller-Chappuis' game. In his interpretations of old French baroque music there were elements such as: For example, the principle of the notes inégales , which was a matter of course for baroque specialists on old instruments, but not for pianists of the predominantly classical-romantic repertoire in the post-war years after 1945. The principles of belcanto that apply to the interpretation of Chopin's piano work also played in Müller -Chappuis' piano art plays a major role. Here he meets with Raoul von Koczalski , whose easy and vocal game he found exemplary.

The old recordings of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (1938/1942) with Robert Schumann's Children's Scenes op.15, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Duport Variations, Köchel Directory 573 or the piano pieces by Frédéric Chopin, despite the deficits of the recording technology at the time, best show the delicacy and richness of nuances of Müller-Chappuis' game again.

As a teacher, Müller-Chappuis emphasized the principles of relaxation and serenity that are now recognized as the basis for practice and play. Hence the preference for the quieter registers of the dynamic scale when practicing. There was no rigid teaching system, it was free work, in which the individual tendencies and preferences of the student determined the direction and the technique of piano playing was developed on the pieces to be worked on.

Fonts

• Pictures and impressions . Neckar-Verlag, Villingen 1955.
• Our concerns remain the same . Self-published, Mannheim 1959.
• Music studies . Self-published, Mannheim 1961.
• From young and old people . Self-published, Mannheim 1964.
• Articles, memories, diary sheets . Self-published, MannheIm 1967.

Audio documents

Record recordings

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sonata in C major Köchel-Verz. 330. 2nd movement Andante cantabile. Polydor No. 15227 A. (Photo: Berlin, October 14, 1938).
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sonata in E flat major Köchel-Verz. 282. 2nd movement Menuetto I / II. Polydor No. 15227 B. (Recording: Berlin, October 14, 1938).
• Robert Schumann: Forest scenes op. 82 (No. 3 Lonely flowers. No. 6 Herberge). Deutsche Grammophon-Gesellschaft No. 15226 A. (Recording: Berlin, October 14, 1938).
• Frédéric Chopin: Mazurka in A minor op. 17/4. Deutsche Grammophon-Gesellschaft Nr. 15226 B. (Recording: Berlin, October 14, 1938).
• Frédéric Chopin: Prélude D-flat major op. 28/15. Polydor (Japanese) S 4006 A. (Photo: 1940).
• Frédéric Chopin: Nocturne in C sharp minor op. 27/2. Polydor (Japanese) S 4006 B. (Photo: 1940).
• Robert Schumann: Children's Scenes, Op. 15. Deutsche Grammophon-Gesellschaft No. 67989/67990. (Recording: Berlin, October 19, 1942).
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Variations on a minuet by Jean-Pierre Duport Köchel-Verz. 573. Deutsche Grammophon-Gesellschaft No. 67991. (Photo taken in Berlin, October 19, 1942).

Broadcast recordings

• Franz Schubert: Andante varié in B minor op. 84/1 (German catalog. 838) for piano 4 hands. (With Georges Humbrecht ). (Recording: February 23, 1953, Süddeutscher Rundfunk broadcasting station in Heidelberg).
• Gabriel Fauré: Suite Dolly op. 56 for piano 4 hands. (With Georges Humbrecht). (Recording: Süddeutscher Rundfunk broadcasting station Heidelberg).
• Gabriel Fauré: piano pieces (Les berceaux (song transcription), Impromptu op. 84/1, Nocturne op. 84/2). (Recording: 1954, Hessischer Rundfunk Frankfurt).
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in C minor Köchel-Verz. 491. Head: Heinz Bongartz . (Recording: May 28, 1943 on the Reichsender Saarbrücken. Broadcast of the recording: June 1, 1943 on the Deutschlandsender).
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto for piano and orchestra in E flat major Köchel-Verz. 271st State Symphony Orchestra Westmark Ludwigshafen , conductor: Gerhart Wiesenhütter . (Recording: October 14, 1943 in the Reichsender Saarbrücken. Broadcast of the recording: October 18, 1943 in the Deutschlandsender).

Concert recordings

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in C minor Köchel-Verz. 491st District Symphony Orchestra Brno, conductor: Konoe Hidemaro . Concert in the Brno Theater and recording: December 9, 1942. Broadcast of the recording: December 10, 1942 on the Brno Reichsender .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information from: Military Government of Germany: Questionnaire. MG / PS / G / 9a (Rev. 15 May 1945), Heidelberg, October 25, 1945. Private ownership. The privately owned correspondence between Müller and Chappuis could also be viewed.
2. ^ Elke Rathgeber, Christian Heitler, Manuela Schwartz (eds.): Conrad Ansorge 1862-1930. A fin de siècle pianist in Berlin and Vienna. (= Viennese publications on music history, edited by Markus Grassl and Reinhard Kapp. Vol. 12). Böhlau Verlag, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2017. ISBN 978-3-205-20307-0 , pp. 684,738.
3. ^ First printing: Süddeutscher Musikverlag, Heidelberg 1942. Revised version Ms 1975.
4. ^ Kurt Schubert: The technique of playing the piano from the spirit of the musical work of art (= Göschen Collection No. 1045). Walter de Gruyter publishing house, Berlin 1931.
5. ↑ The source used was the record catalogs of the Deutsche Grammophongesellschaft, as well as a privately owned recording diary of the artist.
6. ↑ Georges Humbrecht (1927-1983). www.musimem.com/humbrecht.htm
7. ↑ According to the broadcaster, the recordings were deleted in April 1960. Recordings of piano pieces by Frédéric Chopin have also been deleted. They were nocturnes and mazurkas.

Web links

• Literature by and about Rudolf Müller-Chappuis in the catalog of the German National Library