Walter Girnatis

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Girnatis (born June 6 or June 16, 1894 in Posen ; † June 4, 1981 in Olching ) was a German composer.

life and work

Walter Girnatis' father owned a printing press, but was interested in music and initially taught his son himself. Around 1900 the family moved to Hamburg . In addition to training for administrative services at the regional court, Girnatis became a private student of the Hamburg pianist and music critic Emil Krause . The training was interrupted by the First World War and Girnatis subsequently worked temporarily as a silent film pianist and as a concert pianist on transatlantic passenger ships. He later worked as a drama bandmaster and from 1928 as program director at Hamburger Rundfunk , where he stayed until his retirement.

In the seizure of power of the Nazis , he was with effect from 1 May 1933 member of the Nazi party and among the party's number registered 2,724,197. During the Nazi era , he wrote various compositions that conformed to the system, including a new “Rüpelmusik” in 1935 for Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream , instead of the incidental music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, which was defamed by the Nazis . In 1936 he composed a piece of music for Tief im Innern shines bright light (text by W. Jünemann) on the occasion of a morning party of the Hitler Youth . In 1937 this was followed by music for the symbolic game Die große Wende by Thomas Westerich , in 1939 a force through joy fanfare under the title Rejoice in life . During the Second World War he wrote a. a. 1940 a battle song for male choir and symphony orchestra under the title The World Belongs to Leaders on a text by R. Heyden. In the same year he arranged Norbert Schultze's war song Bomben auf Engelland for trumpet, violin and cello and arranged a war song Es thunder our engines to a text by Gustav Kneip for piano and accordion. In 1941 the loyalty song Das Reich we want to preserve followed for wind instruments, three violins and cello, the war song It thunders the millennium from our firm step for violins and cello and in 1942 a free watch music. A song drum for our navy. Spliced ​​together in rhymes by Hans-Wilhelm Kulenkampff and musically infused by W. Girnatis, for lead singers and team choir with a drawbox .

The compositions of Girnatis also include radio operas , an operetta Der Schwarze Schwan (1936), music for film, theater and radio plays, but also orchestral works (including a flute concerto in G major, 1941) and chamber music (including a wind quintet, 1938). His partita for accordion orchestra was awarded a prize in the 1955 Edition Hohner composers' competition.

Letters from Walter Girnatis are in the holdings of the Leipzig music publisher CF Peters in the Leipzig State Archives . The State Archive of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg has a collection of newspaper clippings about Girnatis.

literature

  • Ursula Pešek, Željko Pešek: Flute music from three centuries. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1990, ISBN 3-7618-0985-9 , p. 178.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ life data (Sikorski-Verlag)
  2. ↑ Life data (Schott Music) ( Memento of the original from May 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.schott-musik.de
  3. ^ A b Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 . Kiel 2004, CD-ROM Lexicon, p. 2082.
  4. ^ A b c Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945. Kiel 2004, CD-ROM Lexicon, p. 2083.
  5. ^ A b Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945. Kiel 2004, CD-ROM Lexicon, p. 2084.
  6. ^ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945. Kiel 2004, CD-ROM Lexicon, p. 2085.
  7. ^ Collection of newspaper clippings on Walter Girnatis, signature Hamburg State Archives, 731-8_A 757 Girnatis, Walter  in the German Digital Library
personal data
SURNAME Girnatis, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH 4th June 1981
Place of death Olching