Werner Haas (pianist)

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Werner Haas (born March 3, 1931 in Stuttgart ; † October 11, 1976 near Nancy ) was a German pianist who was internationally known and distinguished primarily for his interpretations of the piano music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel .

Life

Werner Haas grew up in Stuttgart- Feuerbach . The father Meinrad Haas (1901–1979) was an architect and after the Second World War he worked as a teacher at the Steinbeis trade school in Stuttgart. He was a good piano player and gave his son piano lessons from the age of four. The mother Martha Haas b. Hägele (1905–1972) worked as a singer at the Ingolstadt and later at the Pforzheimer theater. Music played a formative role in Werner Haas and his older sister Isolde's (1929–2013) parents' house. The encounter with the teacher at a Waldorf school laid the foundation for later occupation with Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy . After attending elementary school and the Leibniz Gymnasium in Feuerbach , which he left with secondary school leaving certificate, Werner Haas studied from 1947 to 1954 as the youngest student at the Stuttgart University of Music with Lilly Kröber-Asche and from 1954 to 1956 in Walter's master class Gieseking at the Saarbrücken State Conservatory ( Conservatoire de Sarrebruck ).

Werner Haas was a participant in the ARD international music competition in 1953 and 1954 ( working group of the public broadcasters of the Federal Republic of Germany ). In 1953 he reached the finals, but dropped out in the first round in 1954.

In his Stuttgart debut, two youth concerts in the Gustav-Siegle-Haus on September 16 and 17, 1955, Werner Haas played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23, accompanied by the Stuttgart Philharmonic under the baton of Hans Hörner . The first major piano recital on November 1, 1955 also took place in the Gustav-Siegle-Haus. In 1958, after a concert for young pianists ( Concert des jeunes ) in the Salle Pleyel in Paris, at which Werner Haas played works by Debussy, the director of record production at Philips France, Igor B. Maslowski, signed an exclusive record deal with him led to recordings of the entire piano works of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. An international career followed in the music centers of Europe, which was accompanied by recognition, especially from foreign criticism. A tour of Canada could no longer be realized due to the early death of the pianist.

Grave of Werner Haas and his family in the Stuttgart-Feuerbach cemetery (section 7).

On the way back from a concert tour, which began on 4 October 1976 in Gothenburg and on October 9 Caen ended Werner Haas was killed in a car accident on 11 October 1976 in the village of Lay-Saint-Remy in Foug near Toul and died on the way to the central hospital ( Hôpital Central ) in Nancy . Werner Haas was buried on October 21, 1976 in the Stuttgart-Feuerbach cemetery.

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Werner Haas was described as a humble person who, despite his successes and skills, did not push himself to the fore. His naturalness, cheerfulness and humor were valued. He felt obliged to the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, studied his work and was acquainted with the well-known anthroposophists of his hometown. The official Stuttgart was not very concerned about the promotion of the development of the young pianist and even later the career of the Stuttgart native was not really followed with interest in his hometown.

The pianist

Werner Haas made numerous records for Philips, appeared on radio and television and developed into an internationally successful concert pianist and orchestral soloist. Foreign countries, especially France, celebrated him for his interpretations of the works of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel as Walter Gieseking's successor ( le successeur de Gieseking ) and, in view of recordings such as the two etude cycles op.10 and op.25 or the Waltzes by Frédéric Chopin , for one of the great German pianists of his generation. Appreciation in Germany was more subdued. One saw in him mainly French, American and Russian pianists such as Debussy, Ravel, Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Scriabin, Kabalewsky and Stravinsky, composers who were not in the repertoire of the German pianists of Werner Haas's generation played a major role. It was overlooked that Werner Haas' repertoire also included the masterpieces of German piano music, for example Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. This mastery in the style-appropriate interpretation of piano music from different centuries, his outstanding, natural and unobtrusive virtuosity, which he put in the service of music without any gimmicky, made Werner Haas an exceptional figure in German and also European pianistics of the second half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, Haas was hardly noticed in the canon of the great pianists in Germany. In the 1965 book, Great Pianists in our time of Joachim Kaiser Werner Haas will last, the younger pianists chapter devoted no mention - despite his won 1961 Grand Prix du Disque and the positive criticism of his record recordings.

In November 1961 Werner Haas received the Grand Prix National du Disque 1962 of the Académie du disque français for the complete recording of Debussy's piano works, and in 1970 the Amsterdam Edison Prize ( Edison Classical Music Award ) for the complete works of Ravel. Werner Haas was one of the first pianists who (in 1964) played works for piano and orchestra by George Gershwin in concert in Germany. Towards the end of his career he also performed Sergei Rachmaninov's piano concertos , including in Tehran.

Audio documents

Record recordings

  • Debussy, all piano works,
  • Ravel, all piano works
  • Chopin, studies, waltzes
  • Tschajkowski, complete works for piano and orchestra
  • Gershwin, all works for piano and orchestra:
  • Toccatas from three centuries

Dubbing on CD

Recordings broadcasts

These are the recordings published by Philips, some of which were released under license by Philips itself, and partly due to private initiatives.

Publications of radio recordings

Recordings of compositions by Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Kabalewski and Stravinsky.

literature

  • Johannes B. Sautter: Werner Haas. His game was poetry; Life and work of the Stuttgart master pianist . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2011. ISBN 978-3-8423-2208-0 .
  • Ingo Harden and Gregor Willmes: pianist profiles. 600 performers: their biography, their style, their recordings. With the collaboration of Peter Seidle. Bärenreiter Verlag, Kassel u. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-7618-1616-5 .
  • Alain Pâris: Classical Music in the 20th Century. Instrumentalists, singers, conductors, orchestras, choirs . Translated by Rudolf Kimmig. Edited by Ralf Noltensmeier. With an introduction by Peter Gülke. 2nd expanded, completely revised edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-32501-1 . (Article: Haas, Werner , page 330).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gustav A. Alink: International Piano Competitions . First edition. Alink, s'Gravenhage 1990. Book 3: The Results. ISBN 90-72579-02-X , pages 6-7.
  2. ↑ The program contained the Sonata in F major KV 332 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Sonata in B major D 960 by Franz Schubert, pieces by Frédérich Chopin and Claude Debussy, and Sonata No. 7 in B flat major op.83 by Sergei Prokofjew .
  3. ^ Feuerbach cemetery: Feuerbacher-Tal-Straße 90, 70469 Stuttgart, Department 7, 6th row, grave 14/15.
  4. ↑ Examples of this are Schumann's symphonic studies, Chopin's cycle of studies and Debussy's studies.
personal data
SURNAME Haas, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pianist
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1976
Place of death Nancy