Wolfgang Hofmann (composer)

Wolfgang Hofmann (born September 6, 1922 in Karlsruhe , † March 19, 2003 in Mannheim ) was a German violinist, composer and conductor.

Adolescent years and studies

Wolfgang Hofmann was the son of the clarinetist Hermann Hofmann (* 1889 in Frankfurt am Main), whom Wilhelm Furtwängler had once appointed as principal clarinetist at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra . Wolfgang Hofmann grew up in Leipzig .

Wolfgang Hofmann received his first piano lessons at the age of five from his father. A year later he began taking violin lessons with Emil Kolb. At the age of eleven, he started taking lessons with Hans Lindner. The first composition exercises also took place at this time, but his composition teacher forbade them, arguing that you had to master the four-part setting as well as Johann Sebastian Bach before you could try your hand at your own compositions, so that the father found new teachers. These were of particular quality: Rudolf Kempe (piano), at that time still solo oboist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra, who was preparing himself for his conducting career, Kurt Stiehler (violin), then concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, later professor in Munich, and Dr. Reinhard Oppel (composition, music history).

Orchestra and soloist years

Hofmann performed as a soloist at a young age. At the age of 17 he got a job as a violinist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra, which was then directed by Hermann Abendroth. He was called up for military service in 1939 and had to interrupt his music career for eight years. During the French captivity on the edge of the Sahara, however, the officers held there had founded a camp university where, in addition to history, law, mathematics, natural sciences, architecture and linguistics, music could be studied with Wolfgang Hofmann. Instruments were provided by the Red Cross. Hofmann conducted a camp choir, founded a camp orchestra, made chamber music, gave violin and theory lessons and worked as a church musician for both denominations. During this time Wolfgang Hofmann composed, for example, a quintet for 2 violins, viola, violoncello and flute, 2 short operas and also a Catholic mass. All of these works had their first performances in the prison camp on the edge of the Sahara desert. Only after the end of the war and his return from captivity in 1948 did he find jobs as a violinist in the orchestras of Kaiserslautern and Darmstadt - from 1955 as concertmaster in the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra . At that time he was also a member of the Mozarteum Quartet. With this orchestra, the Mozarteum Quartet and also as a soloist, he toured Europe, North America and Africa in the following years.

Conductor and composer

Based on his many years of orchestral experience, Wolfgang Hofmann became conductor in 1959. He took over the musical direction of the Palatinate Chamber Orchestra in Mannheim. He led this orchestra for almost three decades until October 1st, 1987. During this time Hofmann conquered the concert halls at home and abroad, as well as many German and foreign radio companies with programs that, in addition to the well-known chamber orchestra repertoire, repeatedly contained his own compositions. In addition to his own compositions, Wolfgang Hofmann devoted himself intensively to the excavation and processing of numerous works from the Mannheim School . It is thanks to him and the Süddeutscher Rundfunk in Heidelberg that this wonderful music is playable again today. In 1968, after the death of Karl Ristenpart , Hofmann also worked for a few years with the Saarland Radio Chamber Orchestra , with which he also played on television. In 1973 the Minister of Culture of Rhineland-Palatinate awarded him the highest cultural award in the state, the Peter Cornelius plaque . In terms of composition, Hofmann developed his own personal style, which alone "lifts composing above craftsmanship" (Hofmann in his book Golden Ratio and Composition , Heinrichshofen-Verlag).

From 1987 until his death in 2003 Wolfgang Hofmann worked as a freelance composer in Mannheim. On the occasion of his 75th birthday, he published cheerful and critical reflections on the music of this century in his book Divertissement . In 1992 the Wolfgang Hofmann Foundation was established, which organizes competitions at universities and music schools and thus endeavors to promote the next generation of musicians.

Compositions

Selection from a total of approx. 360 works by Wolfgang Hofmann from Wolfgang Hofmann, list of works, by Carina Baumann, Florian Noetzel

• H51A Sonata in A for violin and piano
• H52A “Everything is Kismet”. Cheerful opera in two pictures from the kingdom of Hārūn ar-Raschīd
• H52B Trio in C for flute, violin and viola
• H53A Concertino in E flat for piano and orchestra
• H53B string quartet in C.
• H53C Sonatina in B for two pianos
• H54A Quartet in G for piano, clarinet in Bb, violin and violoncello
• H63B Concertino for violin and orchestra
• H94K Sonatina for piano (for the right hand), written for Norbert Nohe
• Small symphony for plucked orchestra

Web links

• Works by and about Wolfgang Hofmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wolfgang Hofmann on Klassika