Gerhart Münch

Gerhart Münch ( born March 23, 1907 in Dresden, † December 9, 1988 in Tacámbaro, Michoacán, Mexico ) was a German pianist and composer.

Life

Münch, who was a child prodigy, received his first piano lessons from his father, a music teacher and composer Ernst Robert Munch and was later trained at the Dresden Conservatory. In 1925, he finished high school in Dresden. In 1927 he went on study trips to Italy and France. In the 1930s, he lived mainly in Rapallo, where he gave concerts with Olga Rudge. In 1937 he married in Naples, the American poet Vera Lawson. Between 1940 and 1944 he performed military service as a soldier in the German Wehrmacht. In 1947 he emigrated to California, and from there in 1953 to Mexico, where he lived until his death.

Work

Paul Hindemith composed in 1926, Ernst Toch and just 19 years old Gerhart Münch for the Chamber Music Festival Donaueschingen on July 25, 1926 pieces for mechanical piano " Welte - Mignon ". These pieces were played by hand. The ability to produce almost any tone sequences in such a piano over the programming of the piano roll, the composer gave new freedoms to the sound design.

Munch's contribution were following compositions:

Six studies: Polyphonic Etudes for Player Piano. Introduzione Maestoso - Prestissimo - Largo - Jazz - Andantino - fugal (original composition for Welte - Mignon).