The Violin Music of East Germany Part VII: Günter Raphael
This post highlights Günter Raphael (1903-1960), a composer who battled many obstacles during his relatively short life and career including the Nazi Regime, and Tuberculosis. He wrote quite a bit for violin and it has been a delight to get to know him and his music. I’ve been exploring his violin duets (by myself) and have included one here for you to enjoy as well.
Günter Raphael (1903-1906) is a musical treasure I only recently discovered. He was born into a musical family; his father was Georg Raphael (1865-1904), and mother Maria Becker (1878-1952) were both musicians. The Raphael family was Jewish but assimilated to the protestant faith, which was in keeping with the spirit of the time. Georg Raphael, a lover of J.S.Bach’s music, began studying medicine and then music and was employed as a church musician at the Luther Kirche and later became the music director at St. Matthäuskirche in Berlin. Günter’s mother was a violinist and the daughter of Albert Becker, an important composer in Berlin in the 19th century.
According to the Günter Raphael website, Raphael was a promising young composer with great potential and received many accolades for his early work. Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted the premiere of his first symphony in 1926 in Leipzig. From 1926 to 1934, he taught in Leipzig but the Nazis declared Raphael a "half-Jew,” forbidding all professional endeavors and the performance of his music.
After losing his teaching position at the Leipzig Conservatory, he married his Danish student, pianist Pauline Jessen. They move to Meiningen (Thuringia), where Jessen already held a teaching position. They have two daughters Dagmar and Christine, born eight years apart. Christine Raphael (1943 - 2008) became a solo violinist and performer, and champion of her father's violin compositions. There is also a foundation in her name that promotes performances of her father’s music.
Throughout 1934, Raphael contracted tuberculosis forcing him to undergo numerous operations and spend extended periods in sanatoriums. Nevertheless, according to his website, he continued to compose and was often protected from the Nazis by his doctors.
Although after WWII, he wasn’t able to reclaim the musical prominence he once had, in 1948, he was awarded the Franz-Liszt-Award for composition, and radio stations played his music again. He also toured as a piano duo with his wife.
From 1949-1953, He taught at the Duisburg Conservatory of Music (this is about as far away from East Germany as you can get without leaving Germany. Duisburg is very near the Germany/Netherlands border).
In 1956, he was offered the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, but he declined, not wishing to lose his artistic freedom by relocating back to Leipzig, in East Germany. He became a lecturer at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory of Music in Mainz.
In 1957 He was appointed Professor at the Cologne University of Music.
Sadly, in 1960, he died in an ambulance en route to Herford due to his long-standing illness.
In 1968, Günter Raphael was posthumously awarded the title "Senator of Honour” at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy University of Music in Leipzig.
Throughout his career, Günter Raphael also worked as an editor of classical and baroque scores for Breitkopf and Härtel.
I’m surprised it took me as long as it did to come across his name. He straddles several complex and iconic eras and political issues and comes from a prominent musical family. I found his Dialogue Duette for Zwei Violinen book one on Abebooks.com and bought it impulsively. After getting to know some of his music and then reading about him (usually, I do this in the opposite order), I thought he deserved much more attention.
I found several more of his pieces for violin listed on publisher websites, and they are currently en route from Germany, but several are back-ordered due to lack of available parts.
Music I’m Looking for:
Konzert C-Dur für Violine und Orchester op.21 (1928)
Symphonische Fantasie für konzertierende Violine und Streichorchester op.59 (1940)
Konzert für Violine und Orchester op.87 (1960)
Sonate a-moll op.46 Nr. 1 für Solovioline (1940) ACQUIRED but back-ordered by publisher
Sonate E-Dur op.46 Nr. 2 für Solovioline (1940) ACQUIRED but back-ordered by publisher
Sonate E-Dur op.12 Nr. 1 für Violine und Klavier (1925) ACQUIRED en route
Sonate G-Dur op.12 Nr. 2 für Violine und Klavier (1925)
Sonate C-Dur op.43 für Violine und Klavier (1936)
Sonatine in h-moll op.52 für Violine und Klavier (1944) ACQUIRED
"Jabonah" op.66a bearbeitet für Violine und Klavier (1951)
Duo g-moll für 2 Geigen op.47 Nr. 1 (1940) ACQUIRED but back-ordered by publisher
Duo c-moll für Geige und Bratsche op.47 Nr. 2 (1940)
Duo e-moll für Geige und Violoncello op.47 Nr. 3 (1940)
Dialoge Duette für 2 Violinen Heft 1 25 Duette (1951) ACQUIRED
Dialoge Duette für 2 Violinen Heft 2 20 Duette (1957)
I recorded several of his violin duets to get a feel for his musical language and style. Here is one, but there are several more available on my YouTube channel.
Below, is his second violin concerto, published in 1959/60 and performed by his daughter Christine. It is a fascinating and beautiful piece, made even more touching by the family ties between composer and performer.
GDR Music Research - A little extra History
The music of East Germany is particularly fascinating because of the rich history full of notable and significant composers and performers. The divide that occurred after World War II did not foster wide-spread acclaim or acceptance of musicians living and working behind the wall even though plenty of music was written and performed. You can learn more about the region and political climate of East Germany in my most recent blog post.
The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin
Hi Friends,
Now that I've shared my goals and resolutions for the new year, I'm diving back into my Violin Music of East Germany project and research. It occurred to me that I need to back up a little bit and dive into some of the general history and facts about East Germany before and after World War II. This land has been the home to some of Classical Music's most beloved composers and performers throughout history, so it is crucial to understand this project's context beyond the forgotten composers of an era.
I've compiled a few YouTube videos that highlight different elements of East Germany, including Rick Steve's overview of some important monuments and history in Leipzig and Dresden, to a walking music tour of Berlin. It also includes a playlist of East German Music, a discussion of the Wall, propaganda footage, and historical documentation of life on the "other" side. All this to paint a picture of the musical climate that has captured my attention.
I've begun exploring music from decades before East Germany became the GDR (or DDR) and will be weaving together programs that intertwine the vast and immense history of a region with the voices of forgotten musical creators.
Enjoy! I hope you find this both interesting and informative.
1. As much as his cheesiness makes me want to roll my eyes sometimes, Rick Steves points out some of the reasons why two of my favorite cities in Germany are so culturally significant, iconic, and beloved throughout time. These cities and their musical significance were the impetus for me to start wondering why there were no famous and iconic composers from this region after World War II
2. Check out this Musical walking Tour of Berlin. This film was recorded at the beginning of coronavirus and geographically organized musically significant city locations. It is incredible how close together some of these important places and musical performances happened to one another. Fascinating and worthwhile. There isn't much about East Germany specifically, but you learn so much about the city and Germany's music and geopolitical environment at large.
3. A brief animated history of Life in East Germany
4. Fascinating footage of East Germany, propaganda, and more
5. The rise and fall of the Wall
I love this quote, "Any barriers we put up to impede freedom, we can also take down."
6. A fascinating cultural documentary about life in East Germany with historical footage
7. Life Behind the Berlin Wall, from The Economist
8. I've been to this place on the Wall. The Berlin Wall Museum is now housed there on the West Berlin side. We also walked through the cemetery and into the Church of Reconciliation (which looks very different now). Can you imagine seeing this every day? This is haunting and eye-opening
9. Last but not least, an hour of East German (GDR/DDR) Music – but NOT violin music…because that's the project I'm working on right now.
The Violin Music of East Germany Part VI: Ottmar Gerster
This month, the spotlight is on composer Ottmar Gerstner. He is difficult to learn much about BUT I’m excited to share a rough recording of myself playing a movement of his violin trio. He was a Nazi sympathizer during his lifetime which put him in a precarious political position after the war and he chose to move to Soviet German (later the GDR) which better aligned with his ideals and politics.
This month, the spotlight is on composer Ottmar Gerster, another composer who is difficult to learn much about these days beyond Wikipedia. This is a relatively short post BUT I’m excited to share a rough recording of myself playing a movement of his violin trio.
About
Ottmar Gerster was born on the 29thof June, 1897 in Braunfels, Germany and died August 31, 1969 in Borsdorf (near Leipzig). He was a German viola player, conductor and composer.
His mother was a pianist and so he learned piano and also violin from an early age. In 1913 he moved to Frankfurt/Main to study violin with Ferdinand Kaufmann and music theory with Bernhard Sekles.
Between 1916 and 1918 his music education was interrupted when he was called up for military service. He completed his music studies in 1920 and began working with the Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra in 1921. Initially, he was the Concertmaster and then between 1923 and 1927 he was the solo viola player. During the 1920s Gerster also joined the labor movement and organized Workers' Choral Groups. In addition, from 1927 till 1947 he taught violin, viola, chamber music, music theory and composition at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.
In January 1933 the NSDAP (Nazi Party) took power and quickly set about creating a one-party state out of Germany. During the ensuing twelve years, Gerster's relationship with the Hitler regime was often collaborative, but at other times problematic. He composed a "Consecration piece" for the regime in 1933 as well as a "battle hymn" for (Nazi) German Christian organization entitled "You should burn," setting a text by Baldur von Schirach. In 1936 there was a popular song entitled "The stranger bride" and a choral song "German airmen". In 1939, he was briefly required to undertake "army service" as a "Road construction soldier".
During the closing period of the war, Hitler included him on the official schedule of "Divinely gifted artists", produced in August/September 1944. This listed more than 1,000 people from the arts establishment who on account of their cultural value should be kept away from involvement in fighting even, as the enemy armies advanced, on the home front. Around this time Gerster returned to Essen where he lived until 1947.
When the war ended, Gerster found himself on the blacklist of the occupying American army but he continued to lecture in Essen till 1947 when he relocated from the British occupation zone to the Soviet occupation zone which was in the process of being transformed into the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). He became a member of the Socialist Unity Party in 1946 and was a distinguished and important composer for the GDR and accepted a professorship in composition and music theory at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Weimar, where he served as the rector between 1948 and 1951. His composition "Festouvertüre 1948" - a work to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the revolution in 1848 - was one of the most performed pieces in the GDR.In 1950, he was a founding member of the East German Cultural Academy (the central Arts Academy in the GDR. It existed under several different names between 1951 and 1993 when it merged with another art school and became the Academy of Arts, Berlin. In 1951 Gerster left Weimar and took a position at what was then called the Mendelssohn Music Academy (now the University of Music and Theatre) in Leipzig, where he remained until his retirement in 1962.
Between 1951 and 1968 Gerster was also the Chairman of the country's Association of Composers and Musicologists.
Style
Gerster was a relatively traditional composer. He stuck to the framework of conventional extended tonality, often using church music modes, building chord structures on fourths and fifths. His works were mostly classical in their architecture and like many composers at this time, he felt an affinity with folk songs, from which his music sometimes incorporates melodies. There is also a stress on a "hand-crafted" element in his tonality.
Gerster was an early exponent of music for the masses and had no difficulty in accommodating his work to the guidelines of Socialist realism – music and art that portrayed the working lives of the socialist regime as ideal which at least during the early 1950s, was the preferred artistic style of the state. Sometimes his style resembles that of his student contemporary, Paul Hindemith.
Music I’m looking for:
(for someone who is hard to find out about, his violin music was relatively easy to purchase and find online from multiple publishers.
Violin concerto (1939)
String quartet Nr.1 in D (1920/21)
String quartet Nr.2 in C (1954)
String trio op.42 (ca. 1922)
Sonata for Violin and Piano (1950/51) ACQUIRED
Divertimento für Violine und Viola ACQUIRED
Kleine Musik zu Festlichen Tag für drei Violinen (1950) ACQUIRED
Drei musikalische Spielzeuge for violin and piano ACQUIRED
Sources:
https://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manuscripts/g-l/gerster-ottmar/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottmar_Gerster