Kurt Thomas (composer)

Kurt Thomas ( born May 25, 1904 in Tonning, † March 31, 1973 in Bad Oeynhausen, full name George Hugo Kurt Thomas ) was a German composer, music teacher and choir director.

Life

From 1910 the family lived in Lennep in the Bergische Land. There, Kurt Thomas attended from 1913 to 1922, the X-ray school. Subsequently, on April 21, 1922, he was enrolled for the subjects of law and music at the University of Leipzig. He finished his studies in 1925 and worked as a lecturer in music theory at the Conservatory of Music in Leipzig. In 1927 he was awarded for his Opus 1 " Mass in A minor " Beethoven Prize of the Prussian Academy of Arts. In 1928 he was appointed by mediation Karl Straube the composition teacher and conductor of the choir of the Church Music Institute of Leipzig. Later he traveled with the renamed " Kurt Thomas Kantorei " Madrigal Choir through Germany. From 1934 to 1939 Thomas was professor of choral conducting at the Academic College of Music in Berlin.

Its proximity to the Nazi system is, among other lodging a complaint of November 6, 1935 at the Reich Music Chamber forth, in which he stressed that he, although in terms of the Nuremberg Laws " full- Aryans ", according to Brückner 's Musical Jews -ABC, while " 100 percent representative Jewish anti-culture, such as Kurt Weill missing ". In 1936, he composed as part of a music competition of the Reich Chamber of Music on the occasion of the Olympic Games an Olympic Cantata, which was awarded by Goebbels with a silver medal. 1940 joined the NSDAP and Kurt Thomas was the member number 7463935.

From 1939 to 1945 Kurt Thomas was the director of the Arts High School in Frankfurt am Main. Among his pupils were the choir director Heinz Hennig and Hans -Joachim Rotzsch, conductor Wolfgang Trommer, the composer Alfred Koerppen, Wolfgang Pasquay, Wolfgang Schoor, Siegfried straw Bach, pianist Günter Ludwig, jazz musician Paul Kuhn, the organist Michael Schneider, the cellist Klaus Storck and Hans Erik Deckert, the singer Helmut Kretschmar and actor Hans Clarin.

From 1947 to 1955, Thomas Professor at the former Northwest German Music Academy, now the University of Music Detmold. There with him among other composers Manfred Kluge, Diether de la Motte and Gerd Zacher and church musician Alexander Wagner and Hermann Kreutz studied conducting and choral conducting. Besides remained Kurt Thomas but from 1945 to 1957 continue to Cantor at the Epiphany Church in Frankfurt am Main.

In 1956, Kurt Thomas has been appointed as the successor of Günther Ramin for Thomas cantor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. He entered the place on 1 April 1957. After four years he finished this activity, as the chorus of opaque, but politically motivated reasons, planned for December 1960 concert tour to West Germany was forbidden. Thomas returned in November of the same year returned to West Germany and led in Cologne from 1961 to 1968 the choir concerts of the Bach -Verein Köln. In addition, he took over in 1961 the leadership of the newly formed instead of the choir of the Epiphany Church Frankfurter Kantorei. In 1969 the resignation as conductor of the choir.

Since 1965 he worked as a professor in Lübeck.

As a composer Kurt Thomas was primarily with choral works known ( Mass in A Minor, 1924; Markus Passion, 1927). His compositional applies in his return to the heritage of Western history in conjunction with the musical language of the late Romantic period as paving the way for the Protestant church music of the 20th century. He took part in the composition competition of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. In group " compositions for solo or choral singing with or without piano or instrumental accompaniment " Thomas won the " Cantata for the 1936 Olympics ," Op 28, the silver medal. The text of the cantata came from the Nuremberg Karl Bröger.

Kurt Thomas is the author of a three-volume textbook on choral conducting, which was opened again, however since 1991. Supplemented and in revised form

Is disputed Thomas ' role during the period of National Socialism because of his position as director of the Arts High School in Frankfurt am Main (1939-1945), which was considered as an elite school and flagship project of the Nazis. For this reason, in 2004 the appointment of a sample room in the new house of the choruses in Frankfurt as well as the installation of a commemorative plaque at the Frankfurt Dreikönigskirche were initially prevented. The role of Kurt Thomas during the time of National Socialism is currently not fully understood. On 8 May 2006 but an information panel (purple) is a decision of the Church Council of the Three Kingdoms community but then been attached to the Epiphany Church, which points to the church on the work of Kurt Thomas.

Thomas was buried in the cemetery of Berlebeck near Detmold.

His son is the cellist and composer Werner Thomas - Mifune ( b. 1941 ).

Works

• Mass in A Minor, Opus 1 (1924 )
• Markus Passion ( 1927)
• Psalm 137 ( By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat ) for two four -part choirs a capella (1928 )
• Christmas Oratorio, Op 17 (1930 /31)
• Organ Variations op 19 on the folk song "It's a reaper, called Death" (1932 )
• Cantata for the Olympics op 28 (1936 )
• Festive Music for Organ, Op 35
• Sowing and reaping, op 36 Oratory
• Eichendorff Cantata, Op 37 (1938 )
• Several motets, including: Surely He has borne our sicknesses
• God shall wipe away all tears
• Shout for joy to God all the earth
• Lord, have mercy on me
• Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house
• 21 From the eternal love op