Walter Levin

Ernst Walter Levin (born December 6, 1924 in Berlin ; died August 4, 2017 in Chicago ) was an American violinist and quartet player of German-Jewish origin.

Life

Levin, grandson of the Elberfeld cantor and composer Hermann Zivi , emigrated in December 1938 with his mother Erna, b. Zivi (1894–1974), his father Alfred and sisters Lore and Eva from Berlin to Palestine . The father ran a men's clothing company on Klosterstrasse that had been " Aryanized ", the family had lived at Cecilienstrasse 47 (now Pacelliallee) in Berlin-Dahlem .

Levin initially received his musical training in Tel Aviv , where the Schönberg expert Peter Gradenwitz sparked Levin's lifelong occupation with the music of the 20th century. In New York City he received a place at the Juilliard School of Music with Ivan Galamian . Here he met the Dresden violinist Henry Meyer , whom he brought in 1949 into the LaSalle String Quartet , which was founded in 1946 . With the violist Peter Kamnitzer (* 1922) as well as various cellists ( Richard Kapuscinski (from 1946), Jack Kirstein (from 1955) and Lee Fiser (from 1975)) they played in the quartet, whose leader was Levin, until 1988.

The LaSalle Quartet benefited from a " residence " at Colorado College and later at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where all four members were employed, so Levin taught violin and chamber music at the University of Cincinnati for 36 years . In addition to its commitment to the music of the Second Viennese School , the LaSalle Quartet also ensured the sustainable revival of the quartets of Schönberg's teacher Alexander Zemlinsky and was also involved in the current string quartet composition by commissioning compositions and premiering by Hans Erich Apostel , Witold Lutosławski , György Ligeti , Luigi Nono , Mauricio Kagel and Michael Gielen recorded.

After his retirement, Levin gave his personal archive to the Paul Sacher Foundation in the “Auf Burg” building on Basel's Münsterplatz . Levin also had an apartment in Basel until his death . In Basel he continued to give courses in which he trained the next generation of quartet. Since 1991/92 he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin ; the Germany radio culture in 2009 sent his musical biography in 26 episodes, of which excerpts of 25-26. December 2017 were repeated in his memory. From 2002 until his death Levin was also a consultant for chamber music at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid . In 2011 he gave up the leadership of the quartet courses in Basel and from then on lived in Chicago .

Fonts

• Walter Levin: Immigrant Musicians and the American Chamber Music Scene, 1930–1950 . In: Reinhold Brinkmann , Christoph Wolff (eds.): Driven into paradise: the musical migration from Nazi Germany to the United States , University of California Press, 1999 ISBN 978-0-520-21413-2 , pp. 322–339

literature

• Claudia Maurer Zenck:  Walter Levin in the dictionary of persecuted musicians of the Nazi era (LexM)
• Robert Spruytenburg: The LaSalle Quartet: Conversations with Walter Levin . Edition Text + Criticism, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-86916-102-0
• Beate Meyer, Hermann Simon , Chana C. Schütz: Jews in Berlin 1938–1945 . : Accompanying volume for the exhibition of the same name in the foundation “New Synagogue Berlin - Centrum Judaicum”, Philo Verlagsgesellschaft: Berlin 2000 ISBN 3-8257-0168-9 . English edition: Jews in Nazi Berlin: from Kristallnacht to liberation google books

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Levin in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Walter Levin in the WorldCat bibliographic database
• Benjamin Herzog: The string quartet as a school of life , at the Sacher Foundation
• Sigfried Schibli: Half a Century of Quartet History. The LaSalle Quartet integrates its collection into the Paul Sacher Foundation , Interview, in: nmz, 3/2002

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Dick: Walter Levin is dead - great violinist and team player . In: Badische Zeitung , August 6, 2017
2. ^ Walter Levin from the LaSalle Quartet has died , WDR 3 TonArt from August 7, 2017
3. ↑ Address on google maps
4. ↑ Chana C. Schütz, Zionists in Berlin , in: Beate Meyer, Hermann Simon, Chana C. Schütz (ed.): Jews in Nazi Berlin: from Kristallnacht to liberation , pp. 124f.
5. ↑ Wolfgang Hagen and Werner Grünzweig in conversation with Walter Levin: Walter Levin and the LaSalle Quartet A musical biography, told in 26 episodes. September 14, 2009, accessed on December 28, 2017 (German). 
6. ↑ Wolfgang Hagen and Werner Grünzweig in conversation with Walter Levin: Walter Levin and the LaSalle Quartet (1-3 / 6) A musical biography Wolfgang Hagen and Werner Grünzweig in conversation with Walter Levin Excerpts from the 26-part conversation series from 2009 (parts 4 -6 on December 26, 2017). Deutschlandfunk Kultur, December 25, 2017, accessed on December 28, 2017 (German).