Volkmar Andreae

Photo taken around 1909

Volkmar Andreae (born July 5, 1879 in Bern , † June 18, 1962 in Zurich ) was a Swiss conductor and composer and director of the Zurich Conservatory. He is considered one of the most important Bruckner interpreters.

Life

Andreae received piano lessons as a child and his first composition lessons from Karl Munzinger . From 1897 to 1900 he studied at the Cologne University of Music and was a student of Fritz Brun , Franz Wüllner and Friedrich Wilhelm Franke . In 1900 he became a solo coach at the Munich Court Opera . In 1902 he took over the management of the Zurich Mixed Choir , which he chaired until 1949, and from 1902 to 1914 he was also director of the Winterthur City Choir and from 1904 to 1914 of the Zurich Men's Choir .

From 1906 to 1949 he directed the Tonhalle Orchestra and from 1914 to 1939 the Zurich Conservatory . From 1922–34 he was president of the Swiss Society for New Music SGNM (today ISCM Switzerland), which he co-founded in 1922. Later he lived as a lecturer and freelance composer in Vienna and performed internationally as a conductor. He was particularly fond of Anton Bruckner's symphonies , of which he made the first complete recording for Austrian radio in 1953 with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra . Since this cycle was only released on CD in 2009, Andreae's commitment to Bruckner remained little known for a long time.

Andreae's compositional work includes operas , symphonic and chamber music works, a piano, a violin and an oboe concerto, piano music as well as choral music and songs (e.g. settings by Swiss poets such as Hermann Hesse and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, who had been friends with him since around 1905 ). In 1915 Hesse wrote the unpublished libretto for Andreae for a four-act opera Romeo , based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in Schlegel's translation . Andreae's circle of friends also included the Konstanz dentist and music sponsor Alfred Schlenker and Fritz Brun .

Andreae found his final resting place in the Manegg cemetery in Zurich .

family

His son Hans Andreae (1908–1978), who was born in Zurich and is a cellist and pianist , taught cello and piano at the Zurich Conservatory from 1937 to 1973 . The conductor Marc Andreae is his grandson.

Awards

Works (selection)

Symphony in B flat major (unpublished, WoO; approx. 1895)
Our father for mezzo-soprano, female choir and organ
The Divine for tenor, choir and orchestra (1900)
Symphony No. 1 in F major (1901)
Charons Nachen for soloists, choir and orchestra (1901)
Guardian Spirits , Cantata (1904)
Four poems by Hermann Hesse. Op. 23. For a (male) voice with piano accompaniment. Hug, Zurich 1912 (premiered in 1913 by Ilona Durigo in Zurich).
Ratcliff , Opera (1914)
Small Suite, op.27 (1917)
Notturno and Scherzo, op. 30 (1918)
Symphony No. 2 in C major, op.31 (1919)
Music for Orchestra, op.35 (1929)
Adventure of Casanova , Opera (1924)
Li-Tai-Pe , Eight Chinese Chants for tenor and orchestra (1931)
Concerto for oboe and orchestra, op.42 (1941)
La cité sur la montagne , Festival music (1942)

literature

Ingrid Bigler-Marschall: Volkmar Andreae . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 1, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 51.
Andres Briner: Andreae, Volkmar. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Walter Reitz: portrait sketches of Swiss sound artists. In: Schweizer Illustrierte , Vol. 24, 1920, pp. 399–407.
Joseph Willimann (ed.): The correspondence between Ferruccio Busoni and Volkmar Andreae. 1907-1923. Hug, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-906415-82-1 ( online ).

Web links

Publications by and about Volkmar Andreae in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
Literature by and about Volkmar Andreae in the catalog of the German National Library
Sheet music and audio files by Volkmar Andreae in the International Music Score Library Project
Volkmar Andreae's estate in the Zurich Central Library
Volkmar Andreae conducts Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 1
Biography of Volkmar Andreae on the website of SME - Musinfo

Individual evidence

↑ Zürcher Illustrierte, 1933: Why I live in Zurich. Retrieved October 29, 2019 .
↑ On the history of the SGNM. iscm-switzerland.ch
↑ Volker Michels (Ed.): Hermann Hesse: Music. Reflections, poems, reviews and letters. With an essay by Hermann Kasack . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1976; Extended edition ibid. 1986, ISBN 3-518-37717-5 , pp. 112, 173, 179, 189, 191 and 198.
↑ Volker Michels (Ed.): Hermann Hesse: Music. Reflections, poems, reviews and letters. 1986, pp. 173 and 189.
^ Andres Briner: Hans Andreae. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
↑ Volker Michels (Ed.): Hermann Hesse: Music. Reflections, poems, reviews and letters. 1986, p. 173.

personal data
SURNAME	Andreae, Volkmar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Andreae, Hans-Volkmar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss conductor and composer
DATE OF BIRTH	July 5, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bern
DATE OF DEATH	June 18, 1962
Place of death	Zurich

[1] Zürcher Illustrierte, 1933: Why I live in Zurich. Retrieved October 29, 2019 .

[2] On the history of the SGNM. iscm-switzerland.ch

[3] Volker Michels (Ed.): Hermann Hesse: Music. Reflections, poems, reviews and letters. With an essay by Hermann Kasack . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1976; Extended edition ibid. 1986, ISBN 3-518-37717-5 , pp. 112, 173, 179, 189, 191 and 198.

[4] Volker Michels (Ed.): Hermann Hesse: Music. Reflections, poems, reviews and letters. 1986, pp. 173 and 189.

[5] Andres Briner: Hans Andreae. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

[6] List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)

[7] Volker Michels (Ed.): Hermann Hesse: Music. Reflections, poems, reviews and letters. 1986, p. 173.