Willy von Möllendorff

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Willy Ernst August Paul von Möllendorff (born February 28, 1872 in Berlin , † April 27, 1934 in Stettin ) was a German composer . He was best known for his work in the field of quarter-tone music. At times he also wrote his name Willi Möllendorff .

Life

Title page of the book with drawing of the keyboard

Willy Ernst August Paul von Möllendorff was the son of the farmer Hugo Wichard von Möllendorff and his wife, the actress Mathilde Buchwald. He studied music in Berlin and then was initially a theater music director and pianist. After some time he had to give up these activities due to the incipient hearing loss and then lived as a composer in Gießen and Stettin. He was married to the actress Margarethe Skorzewska.

plant

Möllendorff's works include several operas, male choirs, songs and a "Great Fatherland Tone Painting" 100 Years of Sword and Lyre (1900).

In 1917 he performed a bichromatic harmonium in public in Vienna and Berlin . With this, each semitone step of the usual tuning was subdivided again, so that a tone reserve of 24 steps per octave was available. The keyboard he developed for this purpose accordingly had additional brown keys for the new tones between the usual white and black keys. He also introduced a simple notation for quarter-tone music.

His book Music with Quarter Tones. Experiences on the bichromatic harmonium by Willi Möllendorff was also published in 1917 by FEC Leuckart, Leipzig. Songs with accompaniment by this instrument have also been published by him.

literature

  • Alfred Baumgartner: Propylaea World of Music - The Composers - A lexicon in five volumes . Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-549-07830-7 . Volume 4, page 60

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Möllendorff, Willy von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Möllendorff, Willy Ernst August Paul von (full name); Möllendorff, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1934
Place of death Szczecin