Winfried Zillig

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Winfried Petrus Ignatius Zillig (born April 1, 1905 in Würzburg , † December 18, 1963 in Hamburg ) was a German composer , music theorist and conductor .

Life

The son of the pedagogue Peter Zillig studied law and music in Würzburg after attending grammar school . One of his teachers there was Hermann Zilcher . In Vienna he became a private student of Arnold Schönberg , later he followed him to Berlin . His first compositions date from this time.

In 1927 he became Erich Kleiber's assistant at the Berlin State Opera . A short time later he went to the Oldenburg State Theater as a solo coach . From 1932 to 1937 he worked as a solo coach and conductor at the Düsseldorf Opera House under Walter Bruno Iltz . Positions as Kapellmeister in Essen followed . From 1939 to 1943 he was first Kapellmeister at the Poznan Opera before he worked mainly in Berlin as part of the troop support . In 1940 he became head of student council I of the district of Wartheland within the Reichsmusikkammer .

During the time of National Socialism , Zillig was a member of the Reichsmusikkammer and was able to assert himself as a composer, especially of film music . In 1934 he wrote the music for the historical film Johanna Black Hunter , which was banned by the Allied military authorities in the post-war period . His Concerto grosso was received ambiguously in 1935. Nevertheless, since 1935 he has composed several commissioned works by the National Socialist cultural community such as the music for the Drama Europe burns , the film music for the Rhine Symphony and the Romantic Symphony in C major , which was premiered at the National Conference of the NSKG. His opera The Sacrifice , which premiered in Hamburg in 1937 , was canceled after four performances, not least because of the negative reviews of the Nazi press, which accused him of "wrong track" because of the sharp dissonances and atonality . In 1939 he composed, like various other composers, a substitute music for Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream , since Mendelssohn's incidental music was no longer allowed to be performed. His opera Die Windsbraut , which premiered in Leipzig in 1941 , belonged to the style of twelve-tone music , which he sold to the Nazi regime in the Leipziger Neue Nachrichten as a “design principle” that “today makes it possible for a great opus strictly based on a single basic idea develop so strictly that one can somehow relate every note, every melody to it or deduce it ”. In 1943 he finally composed the music for the propaganda film Posen, Stadt im Aufbau, and Copernicus , for which he received the special prize from the Reich Propaganda Ministry .

After the end of the Second World War, Zillig became first conductor at the Düsseldorf Opera. From 1947 to 1951 he was the conductor of the Hessischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra , where he made outstanding contributions to the performance of works of new music that were banned during the Nazi era. From 1958 to 1963 he headed the music department at Norddeutscher Rundfunk . In 1963, the year he died, he received the City of Nuremberg's Culture Prize .

As a composer, Winfried Zillig was very productive. His compositional work includes operas , oratorios , passions , chorales , serenades , string quartets and other chamber music as well as songs and suites . In addition, he completed the score for the oratorio Die Jakobsleiter , which his former teacher Arnold Schönberg had left unfinished. This happened at the request of his widow. Zillig also wrote the piano reductions for the Schönberg operas Moses and Aron (Class A. Mainz 1957) and From Today to Tomorrow (Class A. Mainz 1961). Zillig has also created a number of film scores, including the two-part documentary Panamericana - Traumstrasse der Welt and the experimental feature film Jonas (1957), for which he and Duke Ellington received the German Film Prize. He also made a name for himself as a music theorist with a focus on twelve-tone technology .

Works (selection)

Operas

  • “Rosse” (Der Roßknecht) op. 14 after Richard Billinger
  • The Bride of the Wind (opera in three acts) after Richard Billinger
  • Troilus and Cressida (opera in six scenes)
  • The engagement in San Domingo (opera in one act)
  • Peasant Passion (TV opera) based on Richard Billinger
  • The Sacrifice (1937), libretto by Reinhard Goering

Concerts

  • Easter concert
  • Dance symphony
  • Comedy suite
  • Concerto for violoncello and wind orchestra (1934/1952)
  • Concerto for orchestra in one movement

Songs

  • the recluse
  • Choral fantasy about a fragment by Holderlin
  • Songs of autumn
  • Salve regina

Film music

Fonts

  • Essay on the twelve-tone method
  • Schönberg's "Aron and Moses"
  • Schönberg's "Jacob's Ladder"
  • From Wagner to Strauss - pioneers of new music , Nymphenburger Verlag, Munich 1966

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 684.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , CD-Rom-Lexikon, Kiel 2004, pp. 7.988–7.989.
  3. ↑ Complete quotation from Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , pp. 7.989–7.990.
  4. ↑ Complete quotation from Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , pp. 7.990–7.991.
personal data
SURNAME Zillig, Winfried
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zillig, Winfried Petrus Ignatius (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, music theorist and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Wurzburg
DATE OF DEATH 18th December 1963
Place of death Hamburg