Wolf Rosenberg

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Wolf Rosenberg (born January 17, 1915 in Dresden , † January 18, 1996 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German music critic and composer . In addition to his publications in books and magazines, he was best known for radio broadcasts on Bayerischer Rundfunk , Hessischer Rundfunk and Südwestfunk .

Life

Wolf Rosenberg first grew up as the son of a Jewish hat manufacturer in Dresden. After the death of both parents in 1925, his grandfather took him in Berlin . The grandfather promoted his musical talent and enabled him to take lessons in piano , cello and clarinet . Rosenberg was particularly interested in opera from an early age . From 1932 he attended the reform pedagogical Odenwald School in Heppenheim , where he made a lifelong friendship with Wolfgang Hildesheimer . 1934–36 he studied philosophy , history and art history in Bologna and Florence , then composition with Stefan Wolpe in Jerusalem . In 1939 his meeting with Hermann Scherchen, who was staying in Palestine as a guest conductor , gave him important impulses. After attending conducting courses with Scherchen in Switzerland , he continued his training with the conductor Michael Taube in Tel Aviv and taught composition and musical analysis himself in Jerusalem.

Since Rosenberg did not identify with Zionism , he left Palestine after the end of World War II . After stops in Cyprus and Zurich , he returned to Germany in 1948 , supported by the dancer Jo Mihaly , and settled first in Munich and then in Frankfurt. After working as a pianist, cultural functionary in the environment of the Communist Party of Germany and author of school radio programs for Radio Frankfurt , he accepted a call in 1950 at the University of Music in East Berlin , where he taught piano and music theory . Suspected of being a Zionist agent , he fled to West Berlin a year later and returned to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he initially found accommodation with Wolfgang Hildesheimer in Ambach on Lake Starnberg . From 1954 Rosenberg lived in Munich, after 1970 in Frankfurt am Main. In addition to his work for the press and radio, he gave guest lectures and seminars in Germany, the USA and the Netherlands , in particular on electronic music .

Wolf Rosenberg had been married to cultural manager Pamela Rosenberg since 1968 , with whom he had two sons.

Act

In his work as a music critic, Wolf Rosenberg mainly dealt with questions of a music interpretation appropriate to the work (especially based on Arnold Schönberg's ideas ) and singing culture . His criticism of the star cult and the commercialization of the music business, a “misguided public taste” and “uncritical music criticism” he often presented with irony and sarcasm. His book The Crisis of Singing Art , published in 1968, met with a strong response in specialist circles, an excerpt from it was printed in the news magazine Der Spiegel . In particular, his series from the music archive in Südwestfunk Baden-Baden, which presented historical recordings from the time of the shellac and early long-playing records , reached a regular audience from 1972 to 1992, which still today ascribes it the status of a “cult program”. As a scientific journalist, Rosenberg devoted himself in particular to the composers Richard Wagner , Gustav Mahler and Jacques Offenbach . He was editor of a German translation of Hector Berlioz's memoirs .

Rosenberg's narrow compositional oeuvre mainly includes electronic works and chamber music . Two of his three string quartets were commissioned work for the LaSalle Quartet , which recorded one of them for Deutsche Grammophon .

literature

  • Helmuth Kreysing: Wolf Rosenberg , in Munzinger Online  / KDG - Contemporary Composers
  • Christiane Niklew: Wolf Rosenberg , in: Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians from the Nazi Era , Claudia Maurer Zenck, Peter Petersen, Sophie Fetthauer (ed.), Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, 2015

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephan Braese: Beyond the Passes: Wolfgang Hildesheimer , Göttingen: Wallstein, 2016, pp. 48–54.
  2. ↑ A walk in Berlin with Pamela Rosenberg: The Mistress of Beautiful Sounds , Welt am Sonntag from October 12, 2008.
  3. ↑ a b "Karajan wasted the money" , in: Der Spiegel 48/1967.
  4. ↑ “A bit of world spirit, a bit of Mengele” , in: Der Spiegel 37/1968.
  5. ↑ Wolf Rosenberg: The Crisis of Singing Art , Karlsruhe: Braun, 1968.
  6. ↑ Elvira Seiwert: Revelations: On musical interpretation in the age of its technical reproducibility , Springe: Zu Klampen, 2017, chap. 2, pp. 67-72.
  7. ↑ SWR2 moderators: Lotte Thaler.
  8. ↑ Hector Berlioz: Memoirs , ed. v. Wolf Rosenberg, Munich: Rogner + Bernhard, 1979.
  9. ^ György Ligeti / Earle Brown / Wolf Rosenberg - LaSalle Quartet - II. String Quartet / String Quartet / III. String quartet , Deutsche Grammophon, 1970.
personal data
SURNAME Rosenberg, wolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German music critic and composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1996
Place of death Frankfurt am Main