Günter Wand
Günter Wand ( January 7, 1912 in Elberfeld, today part of Wuppertal; † 14 February 2002 in the village of Ulmiz, community Köniz, Switzerland ) was a German conductor.
Artistic Career
He studied with Paul Baumgartner and Walter Braunfels at the Cologne University of Music and Franzdorf Müller (piano ) and Walter Courvoisier (composition) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. After some practical experience in Wuppertal, Olsztyn ( East Prussia ) and Detmold in 1939 he was the first among GMD Karl Dammer conductor of the Cologne Opera, where he remained 35 years.
In 1946 he was appointed at age 34, the youngest general music director in Germany and head of the Gurzenich concerts instead of Pope Eugene. From leadership of the Cologne Opera, however, he retired in 1948, returned and focused now on as " Gürzenich Kapellmeister " just waiting for the concert business.
Wall sat down in his Cologne time especially for the rehabilitation of as "degenerate" by the Nazis branded and composer for contemporary music. In normal subscription concerts - not in special concerts - he confronted the Cologne audience in addition to the classical-romantic standard repertoire of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms to Bruckner with works by Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Bartok and Hindemith and Messiaen, Koechlin, Fortner, Martin, Henze, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, inter alia, Wall was responsible at that time for many German premieres and first performances. So he conducted on June 8, 1957, the world premiere of Wolfgang Fortner's opera Blood Wedding at the Cologne Opera.
He also worked as a guest conductor with major orchestras partly in Germany and other European countries. In 1959 he was invited as the first West German conductor after the Second World War in the USSR.
1974, after his official retirement from Cologne, he took, as a prelude to a complete recording of the Symphony No. 5 by Anton Bruckner with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne for the record, which caused a sensation when they are published. Also produced with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln wall with the same success a complete recording of Schubert 's symphonies.
At the beginning of the 1980s took Günter Wand once more responsibility for an orchestra: From 1982 to 1991 Wall was chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra and was appointed in 1987 to its Honorary Conductor. With this orchestra he recorded all the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies in the studio in the 1980s. These recordings also met with rave reviews.
From 1987 to 2001 Günter Wand conducting the annual opening or closing concert of the Schleswig -Holstein Music Festival - initially in the Lübeck Cathedral, since the mid- 1990s, then in the Music and Congress Hall in Lübeck and Kiel Castle.
In 1982, he headed for the first time the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which still appointed him in the same year his " Principal Guest Conductor". In 1989 he made his U.S. debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In this second career, he found to his current age style. While he was keen to experiment in Cologne and many modern works aufführte, he reduced his repertoire in his late period to little more than the symphonies of Bruckner, Brahms, Beethoven and Schubert. These symphonies he performed repeatedly, some with various orchestras.
In his last decade of life Günter worked wall - next to " his" NDR Symphony Orchestra - especially intensively with the Munich Philharmonic, and the Deutsches Symphonie -Orchester Berlin (DSO Berlin, formerly RIAS, then Radio - Symphonie- Orchester Berlin ) together. The latter appointed him in the 1990's first principal guest conductor, and later honorary conductor.
In March 1995, the re-encounter was with the Berlin Philharmonic, which he led at that time, the last time in 1982. Back in April 1949, Günter Wand in this top orchestras in the Titania-Palast in Berlin- Steglitz with Beethoven's First and Bruckner 's Fourth Symphony debut. The collaboration, however, was always overshadowed in the following decades of long breaks, which will be due not least to Günter Wand relentless demands samples. In September 1996, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Günter Wand nevertheless awarded the Hans von Bülow Medal:
Günter Wand conducted his final concert in late October, 2001 in Hamburg. On the program, the Fifth Symphony by Franz Schubert and Bruckner's Fourth, the Romantic stood. Following these concerts, he made guest appearances, and the NDR Symphony Orchestra with this program still in Wuppertal and Frankfurt am Main.
End of November 2001 was Günter Wand his biographer Wolfgang Seifert a final interview at his home in Ulmiz, which was recorded and later released on DVD. Shortly thereafter, he crashed heavily and broke his right arm, his " beater ". From this fall to Günter Wand never recovered. A few weeks after his 90th birthday died Günter Wand on 14 February 2002 in his adopted home Ulmiz.
A planned for March 2002 concert with the Berlin Philharmonic, should be performed and recorded at the Sixth among other Bruckner symphony, no longer came. Michael Horst concluded his obituary " The humble magician" in the Berliner Morgenpost with the words:
"(...) Still, for the coming of March, three concerts scheduled in which Bruckner's sixth symphony wall was about to close another gap in the chain of live recordings. , The gap will remain forever. Günter Wand can not be replaced. he was an instance of musical sincerity, integrity and artistic humility to which all had to be measured. and he is there, thanks to the many, precious recordings he leaves, continue in the future. "
Artistic style
Wall was relentless advocate absolute faithfulness. Scores appeared to him in principle completely untouchable. Unauthorized ritardandi or crescendos He considered beifallheischender " nonsense ". A step towards the " historical performance practice, " he's never gone well with Mozart and Beethoven. To that extent, his absolute faithfulness of the composers rather peculiar Broken; but his art is characterized by rigor and stringency beyond practical performance considerations.
When still a young conductor, he was asked how he intended to interpret because the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, more like Arturo Toscanini or more in the style of Wilhelm Furtwängler. His laconic reply was: " How Beethoven".
His audiences remain particularly the performances of his later years unforgotten when he conducted on the podium still detached, usually without a score, with quick movements, but under strict eye contact with the orchestra, "his" Bruckner symphonies.
Although wall increasingly concentrated in the course of his career, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner and Brahms, it was the then contemporary music was always an important concern. So he sat down, among others, works by Walter Braunfels, Wolfgang Fortner and Bernd Alois Zimmermann.
Awards
The city of Cologne devoted Günter Wand, which the orchestra like no other coined as music director and conductor Gürzenich before him, a private place that is closely associated with his work. On October 24, 2010, the southern forecourt of Gürzenichs was inaugurated as Günter wall space.
Anecdote
After wall in Gürzenich had conducted a contemporary work, he has received numerous boos besides weak applause. Then he bowed to the audience and said, "I see you have not yet understood the piece. I'll bring it to you once heard. "This is what happened.
Discography
On the occasion of his 100th birthday in January 2012 appeared a comprehensive 28 CDs box with the title The Great Recordings, taken from 1974 to 1999.