Werner Gneist

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Werner Gneist (born March 10, 1898 in Ulm , † August 19, 1980 in Kirchheim unter Teck ) was a German songwriter . His best-known songs include It is day, the morning sun wakes up all creatures , the birthday canon good luck and much blessings and harmony of the stars . He set poems by Christian Morgenstern , Joseph von Eichendorff and Eduard Mörike , among others .

His daughter Christine Flückiger-Gneist wrote the novel Die Diamantstraße about his life .

Life

Werner Gneist was born on March 10, 1898 in Ulm and grew up in Breslau . He received a musical education. Due to the death of his father, he had to leave school in 1912 and began training as a teacher. In the 1920s he joined the singing movement. In 1932 he married Gertrud Huber, with whom he had four children. The family lived in Bunzlau in Lower Silesia, where Gneist gave music lessons as a primary school teacher.

Since Gneist refused to join the NSDAP, he was transferred to Tillendorf in 1938. There he worked as a cantor of the Protestant school. In 1941/42 he worked as a music teacher in the Bohemian town of Trautenau . In 1944 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. As an intelligence soldier, he served briefly on the Eastern Front.

Gneist spent the post-war period in Kirchheim unter Teck, where he was able to build on his previous work as a music teacher. He taught first at the home economics seminar and later at the Kirchheimer Mittelschule. He also wrote reviews for the local newspaper Der Teckbote .

His new home community honored the composer for his services to the contribution of the city's cultural life on March 10, 1973 with the award of the Konrad-Widerholt commemorative coin. At his old place of work, today's Freihof Realschule, a plaque commemorates Gneist.

estate

Werner Gneist has left an extensive musical and literary work, most of which was never published. The estate was arranged by his daughters and can be viewed in the archive of the German youth movement in Ludwigstein Castle near Witzenhausen .

Works

  • The dawn of the sun and your little bird meet . Bärenreiter choir sheet No. 3 (1947), single sheet.
  • Faith and Evening Prayer . Bärenreiter-Chorblatt Nr. 23 (1947), single sheet.
  • Old moon, you little silver ship . On: Bärenreiter-Chorblatt Nr. 36 (1947), single sheet (together with 2 movements by Karl Marx ).
  • You little bird . Bärenreiter-Chorblatt Nr. 38 (1947), single sheet.
  • Death song and song of the dead . Bärenreiter-Chorblatt Nr. 51 (1948), single sheet.
  • The day begins with splendor and tavern, Lord, us restless . Bärenreiter-Chorblatt Nr. 66 (1948), single sheet.
  • It meets . Bärenreiter-Chorblatt Nr. 69 (1948), single sheet (together with a sentence by Walther Hensel ).
  • Home and death, my friend . Bärenreiter-Chorblatt Nr. 84 (1948), single sheet.
  • My eyes wake up and don't see what others are doing . Bärenreiter-Chorblatt Nr. 85 (1948), single sheet.
  • Small choir book (= The Chorsinger, Bärenreiter edition 2719). Bärenreiter, Kassel / Basel / London [around 1952], DNB 1002824206 .
  • Small song book (= Bärenreiter edition. 1253). Bärenreiter, Kassel / Basel / Paris / London / New York 1941, DNB 573483787 .

literature

  • Rainer Schulz: Good luck and a lot of blessings. Explorations around a canon. On the life and work of the song writer and composer Werner Gneist (1889–1980). BoD, Norderstedt 2015, ISBN 978-3-7347-4562-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Christine Flückiger-Gneist: The Diamond Road. Fouque Literaturverlag 2005, ISBN 3-865-48211-2 .