Werner Steinmeier

Werner Steinmeier (born October 10, 1910 in Hanover , † March 7, 1993 in Bremerhaven ) was a German répétiteur , choir director , music critic and music teacher .

Life

Steinmeier played the piano and violin and sang in a choir as a student . After graduating from high school at the Luther Church, he went through an apprenticeship with an assistant examination at a Hanover music publisher. In 1932 he began to study music with Paul Graener in Berlin . At that time at the Stern Conservatory he was a member of the famous Bruno Kittelschen Choir . With Bruno Kittel he underwent special training as a choir conductor . As such, he worked on rehearsals for student and workers' choirs, including for the 1936 Summer Olympics . In Wilhelm Furtwängler's performances of the St. Matthew Passion (JS Bach) in Holy Week , he sang in the supplementary choir.

After graduating as a répétiteur , he got his first engagement at the Stadttheater Bremerhaven in 1937 . His second at the Oberschlesisches Landestheater in Beuthen OS he had to break off because of the conscription to the army in 1939. In April 1945 he was shot in the left hand in the eastern Harz . It remained unusable throughout its life. He had to give up the career of Kapellmeister and get by with private music lessons. In 1945 he married the Leher soprano Käte Ostermann (who had been widowed since 1938) . Stindt. As a trained photographer, she also became known through exhibitions. In 1972 she died of cervical cancer at the age of 54 . For Steinmeier, her early death was “the worst stroke of fate”.

In 1946 Steinmeier wrote the first performance review for the Nordsee-Zeitung . From 1952 he was a music teacher in the colleges of various schools, and since 1958 in the Wilhelm Raabe School . He adored Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner . Every year he attended the Bayreuth Festival and the Salzburg Festival . The Nordsee-Zeitung published his detailed reports in its feature section . In his 44 years as a freelancer for the Nordsee-Zeitung, he became the leading music critic of Bremerhaven. His genuine friendliness was reflected in every criticism. They were all carried by respect, expertise and gratitude.

For over 31 years he led the local choir group "Cäcilia". At the Raabe School, songs by Hans Baumann were part of the school choir's repertoire. Steinmeier left an extensive private archive of regional musical life. After the very happy marriage, he continued to live in his wife's house on Augspurg-Strasse near the Bremerhaven-Lehe train station . He is buried in the Lehe III cemetery.

literature

• Günter Bastian: Steinmeier, Werner , in: Hartmut Bickelmann (Hrsg.): Bremerhaven personalities from four centuries. A biographical lexicon , second, expanded and corrected edition. Publications of the Bremerhaven City Archives, Vol. 16, Bremerhaven 2003, ISBN 3-923851-25-1 , pp. 334 f.