Wilhelm Ehmann

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Wilhelm Christoph Ernst Ehmann (born December 5, 1904 in Freistatt ; † April 16, 1989 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German musicologist and church musician .

Life

Ehmann was the son of a deacon in Bethel . After a brief activity as a primary school teacher, he studied at the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau and Leipzig , where he was taught by Wilibald Gurlitt , among others . After his doctorate as Dr. phil. in Freiburg he was initially a university assistant and "Gauchormeister" of Baden; from 1935 he took over the musical direction of all Nazi events within the university. He completed his habilitation in 1937 and joined the NSDAP (membership number 4,584,193). From 1938 he was a private lecturer and chief editor of the magazine Deutsche Musikkultur . In addition, he was active in the working group for organ music of the cultural office of the Reich Youth Leadership. From 1940 to 1945 he was the deputy head of the musicological institute at the University of Innsbruck and took over the chairmanship of the Vorarlberg Gau Music School.

In 1945 he took up residence in Lippinghausen in the Herford district , where he was employed as cantor and organist in the village church there. In 1948 he took over the office of the regional church music warden of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia , and founded the Westphalian School of Church Music Herford , in the 1991 School of Church Music Herford was converted. In 1976 he handed over the management of the university to Uwe Karsten Groß . He was also a lecturer in church music at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster .

His students include Hermann Kreutz , Volker Hempfling , Sabine Horstmann and Volkher Häusler .

National Socialism

Wilhelm Ehmann's active journalistic and organizational role during the Nazi era is well documented. Many of his writings from the period between 1933 and 1945 show a clearly ethnic character (e.g. "Vom Marschlied und seine Lebensform", Jugend und Volk 1938); Several times he tries to represent or justify the superiority of the “German” in music , also in his work on Adam von Fulda . After the war, Ehmann justified his behavior with the wish to change the system “from within”.

Church music from 1948

In 1948 he founded the Westfälische Landeskirchenmusikschule in Herford, which he directed until 1972. He was also represented on the boards of numerous national and international church music committees, e. B. in the working group for house and youth music (1951), in the international working group music (1951), in the international Heinrich-Schütz-Gesellschaft (1956) and in the German music council (1959). The main focus of his work was the performance of choral music. Here he was guided by the ideal of historical performance practice , v. a. with Heinrich Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach . In addition, he also opened up to the works of newer composers such as Hugo Distler and Ernst Pepping . He was able to provide the necessary basis for his practical work with the internationally recognized “Westphalian Choir” through theoretical research and instructions (e.g. Die Chorführung, 1968). He also renewed church wind music under the aspect of historical performance practice. For this purpose, he had instruments that are narrowly scaled according to historical models built ( Finke , Vlotho) in order to achieve a bright and clear sound.

For the wind lessons he published several teaching works ("The Bläserfibel", from 1951), as well as sheet music "Alte Spielmusik für Bläser" u. a. Concert tours led him a. a. all over Europe, to the Orient and the Far East, to Africa and the USA. In 1957 he founded the first record company with sacred music under the title "Cantate" (together with the publisher Carl Merseburger).

Towards the end of the 1960s he opened church music to newer musical developments (e.g. jazz and electronic music). In 1978 he received an honorary doctorate from the Westminster Choir Princeton, USA. He spread his theoretical and practical musical knowledge in numerous choir conducting courses (especially in the USA and St. Moritz / Switzerland).

Honors

Publications (selection)

  • The choir leadership , 2 vols. Kassel 1949.
  • Tibilustrium. The spiritual blowing, shaping and reforming . Kassel 1950.
  • Education in church music. Lecture given at the opening of the Westfälische Landeskirchenmusikschule in Herford in 1948. In: Series of publications by the Westfälische Landeskirchenmusikschule . Gütersloh, issue 1, 1951.
  • Legacy and mission of musical renewal . Kassel 1950.
  • The wind art. Brass composing practices in older brass music . Lecture given at the Betheler Bläsertage 1947. Kassel 1951/1961 2 .
  • The choir in the cultural crisis. Lecture given at the conference of the Association of Mixed Choirs of Germany in Detmold in 1951. In: Series of publications of the Association of Mixed Choirs of Germany , Vol. I, 1951.
  • Current tasks of the singing movement. Lecture given at the working group for domestic and youth music in Kassel 1951. In: Hausmusik XVI (2–4), 1952 (special print: Kassel 1953).
  • Choral voice training . Kassel 1953/1970 4 .
  • The music-making picture of the German choir in the 16th century. In: Heinrich Besseler (ed.): Music and image, FS Max Seiffert for his 70th birthday . Kassel 1938.
  • Performance practice of Bach's motets. Lecture given at the musicological congress in Lüneburg in the Bach year 1950. In: Hans Albrecht (ed.): Kgr. Ber. Lueneburg 1950 . Kassel 1952 (extended reprint: MuK XXI, 1951).
  • Johannes Kuhlo. A minstrel of God . Stuttgart 1951 / completely revised Witten 1974 5 .
  • Wilhelm Ehmann. Voce et tuba: Collected speeches and essays 1934-1974 (ed. Dietrich Berke; Christiane Bernsdorff-Engelbrecht; Helmut Kornemann). Kassel: 1976.
  • Musicology and musical folklore. In: Deutsche Musikkultur III, Issue I / 3, 1938/39.
  • About the marching song and its way of life. In: Musik in Jugend und Volk , Issue 12, 1938, pp. 479–486.

literature

  • Gerhard Mittring (Hrsg.), Gerhard Rödding (Hrsg.): Music as a hymn of praise. Festschrift for Wilhelm Ehmann (on his 60th birthday on December 5, 1964) . Tonkunst Verlag Merseburger, Darmstadt 1964 (149 pages).
  • Kurt Drexel: Musicology and Nazi ideology, illustrated using the example of the University of Innsbruck from 1938 to 1945 . Publication office of the University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck 1994 (publications of the University of Innsbruck, vol. 202).
  • Eckhard John: The Myth of the German in German Music. Freiburg musicology in the Nazi state. In: Music in Baden-Württemberg. Jahrbuch 5 (1998), pp. 57-84.
  • Heiko Bockstiegel:  EHMANN, Wilhelm. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 20, Bautz, Nordhausen 2002, ISBN 3-88309-091-3 , Sp. 444-450.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • With trombone, choir and baton. Writings of the State Church Archives, Volume 5, Bielefeld 1999.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 129.
  2. ^ Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , CD-Rom-Lexikon, Kiel 2004, p. 1333.
  3. ↑ Walter Habel (ed.): Who is who. 18th edition. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-7973-0267-3 , p. 202
personal data
SURNAME Ehmann, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ehmann, Wilhelm Christoph Ernst (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musicologist and church musician
DATE OF BIRTH 5th December 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Sanctuary
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1989
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau