Ulrich Kessler (musician)

Ulrich Kessler (born July 4, 1905 in Dessau , † March 15, 1984 in Berlin ) was a German composer and pianist .

Live and act

After Kessler had changed from high school in a commercial apprenticeship year in an insurance company, he completed 1925 to 1928 training as a commercial artist and illustrator . He financed this as a pianist, so that at the beginning of 1929 he came into contact with dance for the first time as a musical collaborator at the Berlin Wigman School directed by Margarete Wallmann . From then on, Kessler worked as a dance composer , worked as a répétiteur in the ballet hall and accompanied a number of dancers with their own and other works: Hans (Jean) Weidt and his group (“Mornings, noon, evenings”, 1930), Maria Kindscher from the Weidt-Gruppe (he married her second marriage in 1943), Georg Groke and Ruth Abramowitsch , Gertrud Wienecke ("Nebel und Sonne", 1934), Lotte Wernicke ("Birth of Work" 1935), Marianne Vogelsang ("Ekstatischer Tanz", he married her in his first marriage in 1939), Hanna Berger , Ilse Laredo, Alexander Kamaroff and Liselore Bergmann, Erika Lindner, Tamara Rauser, Margo Ufer, Maria Litto , Lore Jentsch and, in the post-war period, the Wigman students Manja Chmièl, Karin Waehner, Nahami Abbell, Emma Lewis Thomas or Joan Woodbury doing their first solo works.

From September 1934 Ulrich Kessler worked for the Deutsche Tanzbühne and from May 1936 to August 1938 for the master workshops in Berlin, where he also taught music and form for dancers. From 1938 to 1942 Kessler was employed as musical director in the dance department of the Folkwang School in Essen, and from 1943 to 1945 in the same position again at the Deutsche Tanzbühne Berlin. During these years Kessler himself took additional lessons from Heinrich Eckert in Essen, from Ernst Keller, the head of the department for Catholic church music at the Folkwang Schools, and from Raoul von Koczalski in Berlin. In 1945 she worked as a répétiteur and ballet conductor at the Städtische Oper Berlin, and from September 1945 to March 1947 worked with Dore Hoyer as composer and musical director of her Dresden dance studio. For Dore Hoyer's dance group he composed the “Dances for Käthe Kollwitz” and “Die Schiessbude”. After the group broke up, Kessler worked as a lecturer and musical director at the State University for Music and Theater in Rostock from 1947 to 1948. Another long-term collaboration with Mary Wigman and her school followed.

Although some works like the “Schiessbude” were also shown to have been broadcast on the radio, Ulrich Kessler was so involved in his daily work with students and dancers that he rarely performed his compositions himself in chamber concerts. Nor did he get around to printing it and having it published or recording it on record. Despite war losses and several moves, around 400 autographs have been preserved in his estate.

Works (selection)

Piano for 2 hands

• Morning, Noon, Evening (1930)
• Fog and Sun (1934)
• Birth of Labor (1935)

Discography

• Alexis Pope plays Ulrich Kessler: 10 piano pieces, 2008 ( audio samples )

Web links

• Part of the estate in the German Dance Archive Cologne (under 'Estates and collections').
• Part of the estate in the archive of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin
• Wigman student Joan Woodbury describes the collaboration with Kessler .
• Description of the piece 'Ecstatic Dance' .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Corinna Caduff, Sabine Gebhardt Fink, Florian Keller, Steffen Schmidt: XTC in music, dance, image and text. In: Music & Aesthetics. 11th year, H. 43, 2007, p. 21.