Walter Serauky

Walter Karl August Serauky (born April 20, 1903 in Halle / Saale ; † August 20, 1959 there ) was a German musicologist and Handel researcher.

Life

Serauky, Evangelical Lutheran , was born in 1903 as the son of an insurance agent and a housewife in Halle / Saale. After graduating from high school in 1922 at the Latina of the Francke Foundations in Halle, he studied musicology as well as German, history and philosophy at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the University of Leipzig . From 1923 to 1933 he was a member of the Freie Volksbühne. In 1928 he was at Arnold Schering and Max Schneider at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Halle with the dissertation The musical imitation of aesthetics in the period 1700-1850 to Dr. phil. PhD.

From 1928 to 1934 he was a cultural and theater advisor for the liberal Vossische Zeitung in Berlin. In addition, from 1929 to 1932 he was an unscheduled research assistant at the musicological seminar at the University of Halle. In 1932 he completed his habilitation on the "Music History of the City of Halle I". His inaugural lecture as a private lecturer dealt with the "nature and tasks of the sociology of music". The reviewers of the work were again Schering and Schneider.

In 1933 he briefly joined the SA , which he left again in the same year for health reasons. In 1937 he became a member of the NSDAP . He was also a NSV and NSLB member from 1938 (until 1943); In 1941 he joined the Nazi Lecturer Association . In 1940 he became an adjunct professor of musicology. During the work on the third volume of the hall's musical history in 1941 he was appointed military service in the country protecting the army moved in, but then dismissed already in the following year as a limbless person. In 1942 he became a full member of the State Institute for German Music Research in Berlin. In 1943/44 he represented Helmut Schultz's professorship at the Institute of Musicology and the directorate at the Musical Instrument Museum at the University of Leipzig, as well as acting as the artistic examination office. From August 1944 to January 1945 he was called up for the Volkssturm in Halle. According to the musicologist Eckehard Pistrick, "[his] role during the Nazi era [...] must be viewed very differently". On the one hand, he would have been “ burdened by the political opportunism typical of the time ”, and on the other hand, one would have to emphasize “his tireless personal commitment to musicology”.

At the end of 1945 he was dismissed from the University of Halle, probably because of his former membership in the NSDAP. In 1947 Serauky joined the FDGB . In 1945/46 he worked as a librarian at the musicological seminar. He tried to get rehabilitation , which was made possible for him in 1946 by the " anti-fascist block of the city of Halle". In 1946/47 he received a temporary research contract on Georg Friedrich Händel . 1948/49 he was lecturer for musicological propaedeutics and modern music history at the University of Halle. In 1949 he was appointed professor and director of the musicological institute. His main research interests were musicology, in particular the music history of the city of Halle / Saale as well as romanticism and realism in music.

From 1945 he was a member of the LDPD . In 1955 he became a board member of the Georg Friedrich Händel Society and in 1957 the Scientific Advisory Board for Musicology at the State Secretariat for higher education and technical schools . He was also a member of the International Musicological Society in Basel.

Publications (selection)

• The musical aesthetic of imitation in the period from 1700 to 1850 (1929)
• Music history of the city of Halle (2 vol., 1935–1943)
• Samuel Scheidt in his letters (1937)
• Halle as a city of music (1954)
• Georg Friedrich Handel. His life - his work (5 vol., 1956–1958)

literature

• Gabriele Baumgartner: Serauky, Walter . In: Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (eds.): Biographical manual of the SBZ / GDR 1945–1990 . Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla . Saur, Munich a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , pp. 862-863.
• Rudolf Eller , SL:  Serauky, Walter. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 14 (Riccati - Schönstein). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1134-9  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
• Eckehard Pistrick: Music and musicology in Halle 1933–1945 . In: Hallische Contributions to Contemporary History (2003), issue 13, special issue, pp. 97–121, especially pp. 105–109.
• Nicolas Slonimsky / Laura Kuhn / Dennis McIntire: "Serauky, Walter (Karl-August)." Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Encyclopedia.com. 22 May. 2018, http://www.encyclopedia.com >.

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Serauky in the catalog of the German National Library
• Walter Serauky at Discogs (English)
• Walter Serauky in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
• Entry on Walter Serauky in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eckehard Pistrick: music and musicology in Halle from 1933 to 1945 . In: Hallische Contributions to Contemporary History (2003), Issue 13, special issue, pp. 97–121, here: p. 109.