Walter Scharwenka

Walter Gerhard Scharwenka (born February 21, 1881 in Berlin ; † July 9, 1960 there ) was a German composer and organist .

Life

His father was the internationally successful composer and conductor Philipp Scharwenka , his mother the violin virtuoso Marianne Stresow (1856–1918). Scharwenka began his musical education relatively late at the age of 16: at the renowned Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin, he studied organ with Franz Grunicke (1841–1913) and received piano and composition lessons from his father. The fact that he quickly gained an excellent reputation as an organist in Berlin speaks for his unusual talent.

In 1903 he found a job in Templin as organist, singing teacher and head of the local music association, but returned to Berlin in 1906 to hold the office of organist at the Paul Gerhardt Church in Berlin-Schöneberg. From 1908 to 1916 he worked in Dahlem as organist and choirmaster of St. Anne's Church and as a music teacher at the Gertraudenlyzeum. From 1916 to 1918 he took part in the First World War as a soldier . When the structural completion of the Lukaskirche in Berlin-Steglitz was imminent in 1919, Scharwenka successfully applied for the new church musician position to be established there in April of that year . In the same year he founded the Lukas Church Choir, to which today's Lukas Kantorei Berlin goes back. Scharwenka developed a lively musical life at the Lukas Church, with evening music every month and the performance of great oratorios. In 1937 he took over the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory, whose Jewish director had to emigrate and which existed under his direction until the 1950s. His appointment as music director, which was emphatically pursued between 1930 and 1938, did not materialize for external reasons. During the Second World War Scharwenka succeeded in maintaining the church music work at the Lukaskirche even under difficult circumstances. His compositions for women's choir and organ in particular date from this war and post-war period, as the St. Luke Church Choir had to accept losses among the male voices due to the war.

Scharwenka composed an opera , harp , organ and piano pieces , choral works , motets , songs and two very popular chorale cantatas . Many of these compositions only existed in handwritten form and fell victim to the destruction of the Scharwenka family home in 1943. Some of the choral compositions have been preserved in the music archive of the Lukas Church. Scharwenka's great love, however, was for the organ throughout his life, especially “his” P. Furtwängler & Hammer organ in the Lukas Church, some of which is still contained in today's Lukas organ. In 1950 Scharwenka was retired, but continued to exercise his church music position at the Lukas Church. Although the doctors urgently advised him not to exercise after a serious illness at the beginning of 1960, Scharwenka's thirst for action was unbroken. Presumably as a result of such overload, Walter Scharwenka died on July 9, 1960.

literature

• Self-assessment by Walter Scharwenka in: Hedwig and Erich H. Mueller von Asow: Kürschner's German Musicians Calendar 1954. Berlin: de Gruyter 1954. There also a detailed list of his compositions.
• Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945. PDF on CD-ROM, Kiel 2004
• Paul Frank / Wilhelm Altmann : Kurzgefasstes Tonkünstler-Lexikon , Heinrichshofen's Verlag Wilhelmshaven, 15th edition (1936) ISBN 3-7959-0083-2 , p. 537.

Web links

• Works by and about Walter Scharwenka in the catalog of the German National Library