Erich Bergel

Erich Bergel ( born June 1, 1930 in Rosenau near Brasov, Romania; † 3 May 1998 in Ruhpolding ) was a German conductor and musicologist Transylvanian Saxon origin.

Life

Erich Bergel, was born as the second son of Mr and Mrs Catherine Bergel, born Truetsch (1904 to 2002) and Erich Bergel (1899 to 1971) who were married since 1924. His siblings were Hans ( born 1925 ), Hildegard (1927 to 2007) and Ortwin ( 1937-1952 ). The father was a teacher, a music teacher and county school board and was regularly added, so that Erich in 1936, moved from Rosenau after Reghin, 1939 Kronstadt and 1944 to Sibiu together with the family. Until the move to Sibiu, he attended public schools and received additional music lessons on several instruments. In 1944 his father was arrested, the family lost their fortunes and his brother Hans went into hiding to avoid being deported to the Soviet Union. Erich was not able to visit the school and had his mother and his older sister help to ensure the livelihood of the fuselage family.

From 1946 Erich Bergel attended the Pedagogical High School in Sighisoara, in 1950 he began studying music at the conservatory in Cluj Cluj. While studying Bergel led as a conductor with a student choir to successful spiritual works of Handel and Haydn. He had then charged with dissemination of religious mysticism with the help of music, the conductor of a budding socialist unworthy, cancel the study. The conclusion he could catch up in July 1958. He applied to the end of 1958 for the post of conductor of the Cluj Philharmonic, and prevailed against its competitors. Already in the first months he had brilliant success. In particular, the student audience was enthusiastic about his work. After less than half a year as a conductor Bergel was arrested on 13 April 1959, and sentenced to seven years hard labor. In the fall of 1962, he was released under a general amnesty for political prisoners, he went back to Cluj and took a job as a substitute trumpet player with the Philharmonic Orchestra. In late summer 1966, the guest conductor Fritz Mahler should conduct the orchestra. When he suffered a heart attack, Erich Bergel stood in for him. From 1 October 1966, he was again officially used for conductors. The regular income made ​​it possible then to marry him.

Towards the end of 1968, Bergel was invited by Herbert von Karajan as guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic to West Berlin, in January 1970 he conducted in Baden Baden in May and again in 1970 in Berlin. At the end of 1971, Erich Bergel was clear that the shading by the Securitate was always intense, telephone calls were interrupted more and more friends warned him of intrigue. On December 23, 1971, he decided spontaneously during a concert at the Athenaeum Bukuresti to leave Romania. After conducting the concert ended, he went straight to his car and drove over Transylvania across the wintry Romania to then emigrate via the border town Curtici to Hungary. His international service passport allowed to cross the border without the otherwise necessary lengthy applications.

From 1971 to 1974, Bergel was chief conductor of the Northwest German Philharmonic Orchestra of Herford. From 1972, he led major international orchestra as a guest conductor, which it led, among other things, to Brussels, Philadelphia, Strasbourg, Paris, Auckland, Los Angeles, Boston, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna and Cape Town. In addition, he has taught since 1979 as a full professor orchestral conducting and education at the University of the Arts in West Berlin. He became chief conductor for life of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra in 1989. Erich Bergel was married three times

He received in late 1995 from his doctor, the diagnosis of malignant bone tumor in an advanced stage. Erich Bergel instructed before his death, cremate his body and keep the urn at an unknown location.

The writer Hans Bergel is a brother of Erich Bergel.

The musician

Bergel was flutist of the Philharmonic of Sibiu at the age of eighteen. From the mid- 1960s, he appeared as a conductor. He was chief conductor of the Philharmonic of Cluj and permanent guest conductor of the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra and the Radio Symphony Orchestra. On his sixtieth birthday he conducted in Romania, a few months after the uprising in December 1989, on 1 June 1990, the Cluj Symphony in a memorial concert in honor of the victims of the uprising.

Awards

  • April 3, 1993 - Honorary Doctor of the Conservatory Cluj

Works

  • Erich Bergel: Johann Sebastian Bach, the Art of Fugue: their spiritual foundation in the character of the thematic bipolarity. Brockhaus Music Publishing, Bonn 1980, ISBN 3-922173-00-4 ( 227 pages, graphic representations, notes, bibliography pages 218-224 ).
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