Walter Gieseking

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Walter Gieseking (1949)

Walter Wilhelm Gieseking (born November 5, 1895 in Lyon , † October 26, 1956 in London ) was a German pianist .

Life

Walter Gieseking was born in France and grew up on the French and Italian Riviera. His father, born in Lahde in the Minden district, had studied medicine, but later became an entomologist (butterfly scientist). Gieseking's mother was born in Berlin on March 27, 1870. In 1911 his parents moved to Hanover. There he received his first regular piano lessons from 1912 to 1917 at what was then the Municipal Conservatory from Karl Leimer , to whom he said he owed his entire training as a pianist. Gieseking never attended a school and did not receive any private tuition. On March 31, 1925, he married Annie Haake in Hanover (December 1, 1889 - December 2, 1955); the daughters Jutta and Freya emerged from the marriage. A plan to move to Switzerland failed because his wife was reluctant and the Reich flight tax was introduced. He bought a house in Wiesbaden, where he kept his permanent residence from then on.

After the First World War, Gieseking soon made a name for himself as a concert pianist in Europe, and after 1926 also in America, and performed worldwide. During the Second World War Gieseking continued to live in Germany and gave concerts in Europe.

In 1947 he was appointed professor and leader of a master class at the Saar University of Music . Gieseking held this office until the end of his life. On December 2, 1955, on the way to a concert tour in Italy, he suffered a serious car accident in which his wife was killed. On October 23, 1956, he fell seriously ill in London and had to be operated on the same evening; for two days he vacillated between life and death. On October 26th he died at the age of 61. He found his final resting place in the north cemetery in Wiesbaden .

meaning

Gieseking's technique was based on the method developed by Karl Leimer and further expanded by Gieseking ("Leimer-Gieseking"). Features of this method are: relaxation (relaxation of the muscles), memory training by learning the musical text without an instrument, education of the hearing through maximum concentration while practicing, banishing mindless drill and absolutely sticking to the notation, including the entire arm in the game (weight game), but also conventional training of the fingers, but without the stiffness and cramping that was often observed in the older piano methodology. Technology is only developed in connection with the study of original works, so no individual finger exercises or etudes. Technical details: Forearm roll instead of thumb under the scales and broken chords, renouncement of finger changes for repeated notes, also a so-called half-pedal technique.

Gieseking is primarily regarded as an important Mozart player, but especially as an outstanding Debussy and Ravel interpreter. He had a delicacy of touch and an immense wealth of timbres, which were ideal for the works of the French Impressionists , but also aroused criticism in his Beethoven interpretations - according to his colleague Claudio Arrau , Gieseking's tone did not go well with the sonatas of the Bonn master. Gieseking played all Beethoven sonatas on six evenings at the age of 20.

Gieseking is considered one of the great pianists of the 20th century. Thanks to his extraordinary musical memory and his ability to play from sight, he had the largest repertoire of all piano virtuosos of his time and was able to perform works that had just been heard or read in front of an audience. His repertoire included all epochs from the baroque to the music of the 20th century. His piano playing is unmistakable; it shows a serenity and lightness that is not inhibited by an unnecessary rigidity of the body. The ability to translate mental and tonal ideas directly into game movements made him an exception.

He was not only one of the first pianists - besides the composer himself - to venture into the 2nd and 3rd piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff (there are concert recordings under Mengelberg ), but also performed countless contemporary works by composers such as Albéniz and Busoni , Hindemith , Krenek , Marx , Pfitzner , Schönberg , Schreker , Stravinsky , Martin , Poulenc and Szymanowski .

Relationship to the Nazi state

Gieseking was on the Gottbegnadeten list (leader list) of the most important pianists in the Nazi state. On May 24, 1938 he played the piano concerto Castelli romani by Joseph Marx with the Düsseldorf Municipal Orchestra under Hugo Balzer in the 2nd orchestral concert of the first Reichsmusiktage in Düsseldorf (with the disgraceful exhibition “Degenerate Music” ) . He also performed in occupied Paris and Krakow. In 1937 Gieseking was appointed professor by Adolf Hitler .

Vladimir Horowitz accused him in Evenings with Horowitz of collaboration with the National Socialists ("supporter of the Nazi"). Arthur Rubinstein remembers in his autobiography My Many Years a conversation with Gieseking in which the latter is said to have said: “I am a committed Nazi. Hitler is saving our country. ”Gieseking gave concerts for National Socialist cultural organizations such as the NS cultural community and is said to have expressed the wish to play for Adolf Hitler .

Gieseking, much more cosmopolitan than a representative of the German piano school in terms of character, style and repertoire, was attacked after the end of the war in 1945 for staying in Germany, although he was never a member of the NSDAP and of his Jewish concert agent Arthur Bernstein, who was also his friend and best man and, although the latter had lost his license in 1933, he continued to pay and support him financially until his emigration in 1937. He was put on a black list of incriminated artists and was temporarily prohibited from performing in public, which his daughter said he suffered greatly because of the forced inactivity. In January 1949 he was classified as harmless by the US military administration and approved for concerts. His planned US tour had to be due to massive protests, u. a. by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Veterans Committee , however, will be canceled. He continued to play in other countries and in 1953 he was able to follow up on old successes in the USA with a concert at Carnegie Hall .

Scientific activity

Baronia brevicornis , Coll. Gieseking, Wiesbaden Museum

Gieseking also worked as an entomologist . His main focus was on the butterflies of the region. After his death, his daughters moved the extensive collection to the Wiesbaden Museum , where it is still used today as a basis for faunistic surveys.

Honors

In Wiesbaden a street (above the spa park; to the side of Sonnenberger Straße) was named after him. In Saarbrücken there is a Walter-Gieseking-Straße near the Franco-German high school (formerly the music college). There is also a Walter-Gieseking-Straße in Hanover not far from the Henrietten Foundation . Walter-Gieseking-Straße in Petershagen-Lahde refers to his family roots in Lahde. The Walter Gieseking Competition has been held every two years in Saarbrücken at the Saar College of Music . This serves to promote particularly talented students who come from the ranks of the university.

Fonts

  • That's how I became a pianist. FA Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1963.

literature

Web links

Commons : Walter Gieseking  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Walter Gieseking  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007.
  2. ↑ Michael H. Kater: The Twisted Muse. Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich . Oxford University Press, New York 1997, ISBN 0-19-535107-X .
  3. ^ Ricarda Braumandl: Karl Leimer and Walter Gieseking as piano teachers. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-631-53982-7 , pp. 41 and 50.
  4. ^ Delbert Clark: Nazi Artists Left to German Courts; Clay Orders End of Reviews of Hearings Conducted by Local Tribunals . In: The New York Times . February 2, 1947, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed August 25, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Gieseking, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gieseking, Walter Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pianist
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Lyon
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1956
Place of death London