Waldemar Klink

Waldemar Klink (1948)

Waldemar Klink (born February 14, 1894 in Heidenheim in Middle Franconia ; † March 12, 1979 in Nuremberg ) was a German choir director and composer .

Life

Klink was born in Heidenheim in what is now the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district in 1894 . After attending school in Heidenheim, she trained as a primary school teacher in Schwabach . After participating in the First World War , Klink passed the state examination in Ansbach in 1919 and was employed as a teacher in Nuremberg. From 1927 to 1928 he studied with Paul Hindemith at the Musikhochschule in Berlin . The friendship with the Nuremberg composer and church musician Hugo Distler also fell during this time . The National Socialists banned him from performing in 1934 because of his refusal to exclude Jewish members from his chamber choir. The performance ban was lifted, however, because a children's choir was urgently needed for the opening of the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt and the celebration should be transferred to America. Klink and his children's choir were the only option.

He was the first director of the Nuremberg Singing School founded in 1936 ("Singing School of the City of the Nazi Party Rallies"). From 1938 until his retirement he was the director of the singing school. The first “Junggesang”, a concert for all school classes, was held on March 20, 1937 in the Nuremberg Cultural Association. Up to 2000 children came together, which was a logistical challenge. The singing school was destroyed by Allied attacks in January 1945 and was not put back into operation until 1949. The choir founded by Klink in 1945, the "Nürnberger Singgemeinschaft", became one of the great oratorio choirs that have significantly shaped musical life in the Nuremberg area. The choir was founded because Klink, like other Nuremberg musicians, was banned from practicing by the Allies until 1947, which could be circumvented by the choir under the patronage of the church. He directed it until 1970. Waldemar Klink was also director of the International Organ Week Musica Sacra in Nuremberg for many years (1956–1977) and deputy head of the music department in the “Studio Nuremberg” of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation for the sick director Willy Spilling (1960).

In 1959 he retired. He was married to Henriette Klink-Schneider, a singer and singing teacher. They had two daughters, Hildegard and Ursula. Klink died in Nuremberg in 1979 at the age of 85. His estate is administered in the Franconian Singers Museum in Feuchtwangen .

A street in Nuremberg was named after him.

Publications

• The choir master. A practical manual for choral conductors . Mainz: Schott's Sons, 1952, 216 pp.
• Singing book for male choir . Edited by Waldemar Klink. Lippstadt: Kistner & Siegel, 1950, 154 p. (German choral music, Walter Lott; Volume 2)

Awards

• Citizen Medal of the City of Nuremberg 1961

Web links

• Works by and about Waldemar Klink in the catalog of the German National Library