Wilhelm Krumbach

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Ernst Adalbert Krumbach (born July 25, 1937 in Neustadt bei Coburg , † August 27, 2005 in Speyer ) was a German harpsichordist , organist , musicologist and radio author.

Wilhelm Krumbach at the harpsichord, 1969

Life

Wilhelm Krumbach was born in Neustadt near Coburg as the son of the grammar school teacher for mathematics and physics and hobby violinist Wilhelm Krumbach senior and the piano player Elisabeth Krumbach (née Will) and learned to play the piano and organ at an early age . He lived in Landau in the Palatinate from earliest childhood . During his high school he received a musical education as an organ student of the Palatinate regional church music director Adolf Graf , with whom he later studied the organ.

Immediately after graduating from high school in 1955, he received his first diploma as a church musician . In addition to organ, Krumbach studied musicology with Arnold Schmitz and Ernst Laaf, German studies , philosophy and a few semesters of theology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz . Since his student days, Krumbach has worked as a freelance concert organist, harpsichordist , musicologist and radio author. In 1968 Wilhelm Krumbach married the physician Susanne Seel, with whom he raised the two daughters Elisabeth and Dorothea.

Artistic work

Wilhelm Krumbach enjoyed an international reputation both as an artist and as a musicologist. Concert tours on all five continents and participation in international music festivals have made him known worldwide as one of the leading German organists and harpsichordists. Krumbach has appeared in more than 100 television programs as an interpreter on the organ , harpsichord and fortepiano and has published over 100 records, mainly for German labels, but also in Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, the USA, Japan and Latin America. His complete recording of Bach's organ works on the organ of the castle church in Lahm i. Itzgrund was celebrated by the international press in the 80s as a turning point in Bach interpretation .

Krumbach has given concerts as a soloist with important chamber and symphony orchestras and has played under conductors such as Karl Ristenpart , Antonio Janigro , Wolfgang Marscher , Zubin Mehta and Helmuth Rilling . In addition to the great organ works by Bach , Mendelssohn and Reger , Krumbach also interpreted many smaller local composers and previously unknown or forgotten works, thus combining his work as a performing artist with that as a researching musicologist. Occasional excursions into other musical genres were inevitable. He also produced several CDs together with the Romanian jazz pianist Eugen Cicero . Wilhelm Krumbach gave numerous master classes on the subject of authentic work interpretation on authentic instruments .

In 1966 Krumbach initiated the Fränkische Orgelage organ festival , which he held annually until 1999 and at which numerous internationally known performers performed. The Festival Festliche Orgelage im Moselland , which was held for the first time in 1993, was also initiated by Krumbach. Since his student days he has also been active as a radio author and has written numerous composer portraits and over 2000 manuscripts for radio cycles, in which he mostly participated as an interpreter on the organ or harpsichord. Krumbach was a juror at numerous international organ competitions and a professional advisor on issues relating to the restoration and reconstruction of historical keyboard instruments .

Scientific achievements

Krumbach mainly worked on European organ and piano art from the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century, but occasionally also on organ music from the romantic and modern periods. He made some remarkable discoveries, including a. hitherto unknown organ works by Handel and Beethoven . His discovery and first recording of 60 previously unknown organ choirs by Johann Sebastian Bach made headlines around the world in 1982 and was celebrated in the specialist press as an important Bach find.

In addition, Wilhelm Krumbach dealt in detail with playing style and the art of recording , articulation and tempo issues as well as the theory of sentence , form and affect . In the series Deutsche Orgellandschaften , Krumbach presented important monument organs and their specific music, thereby providing an overview of the history of German organ building .

Wilhelm Krumbach was also an important figure in the development of the German plucked music scene. After a rather accidental encounter with the Saarland plucked orchestra under the direction of Siegfried Behrend , which aroused his interest in the mandolin and its history, Krumbach discovered around 400 lost mandolin works as part of his research and researched the lives of their authors. Many of these works were recorded with Krumbach, the Saarland plucking orchestra , various chamber music groups and the mandolinists Takashi Ochi and Masayuki Kawaguchi at Saarland radio and broadcast in specially created series. Krumbach also played a decisive role in the admission of the mandolin to the Jugend musiziert competition

Awards

Work editions

  • GGB Gervasio: Two pieces for solo mandolin . Trekel, Hamburg
  • P. Fouchetti: Six serenades for two mandolins . Trekel, Hamburg
  • C.Cecere: Sonata in G major for mandolin and BC Trekel, Hamburg
  • A.Rolla: Sonata in C major for flute, 2 mandolins and viola . Trekel, Hamburg

Discography

literature

  • Edwin Mertes: A great man left the stage - thoughts of farewell to Wilhelm Krumbach . concertino 1/2006
  • Hans Oskar Koch: Obituary for Wilhelm Krumbach . In: Pfälzer Heimat , No. 58 (2007). Pp. 32-34

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ s. Mertes weblink: p. 2
  2. ↑ For example: The German organ landscapes , music at courts and residences , music baroque on the Middle Rhine or European organs .
  3. ↑ Mertes (weblink), p. 5ff
  4. ↑ see Mertes (weblink), p. 7
  5. ↑ Michael Kubik: Takashi Ochi for his 75th birthday . In: concertino 1/2010, p. 13
  6. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Krumbach, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krumbach, Wilhelm Ernst Adalbert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German harpsichordist, organist and musicologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Neustadt near Coburg
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 2005
Place of death Speyer