Heinz Tiessen
Encyclopedia
Richard Gustav Heinz Tiessen (10 April 1887 – 29 November 1971) was a German
composer
.
, where he studied with composer Erwin Kroll before moving to Berlin. There, he enrolled at Humboldt University
and at the Stern'sches Konservatorium
, where he studied composition and music theory
. He worked as a music critic for Allgemeine Musikzeitung from 1911 to 1917 before becoming a theater Kapellmeister
and composer for Volksbühne
in 1918. From 1920 to 1922, he conducted the Akademische Orchester and between 1925 and 1945, he taught music theory and composition at the Berliner Musikhochschule
. He also co-founded the German division of the International Society for Contemporary Music
and served as conductor of the Junger Chor. During the Third Reich
, his music was classified as "undesirable" by the Nazi authorities, and after World War II
, he almost completely stopped composing. From 1946 to 1949 he directed the city Konservatorium and beginning in 1955, he headed the department of composition
and theory
at the Berliner Musikhochschule. His best-known pupils were Eduard Erdmann
and Sergiu Celibidache
. He died in Berlin
.
Tiessen composed two symphonies
, a dance drama and incidental music
for a number of plays
, some Music for String Orchestra, a Totentanz
-Suite
for small orchestra
, chamber works
, pieces for piano
and organ, lied
er, and choral
music. The music of Richard Strauss
, who in 1917 had helped Tiessen obtain a job at the Berlin State Opera
, influenced much of his early works: the First Symphony is dedicated to Strauss. From 1918 onwards his musical idiom inclined more towards an individual form of Expressionism
, to which his many theatre scores contributed in evolving a highly dramatic, free-form style.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Biography
Tiessen was born at KönigsbergKönigsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
, where he studied with composer Erwin Kroll before moving to Berlin. There, he enrolled at Humboldt University
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
and at the Stern'sches Konservatorium
Stern conservatory
The Stern Conservatory was a private music school in Berlin with many notable tutors and alumni.-History:It was originally founded in 1850 as the Berliner Musikschule by Julius Stern, Theodor Kullak and Adolf Bernhard Marx. Kullak withdrew from the conservatory in 1855 in order to create a new...
, where he studied composition and music theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
. He worked as a music critic for Allgemeine Musikzeitung from 1911 to 1917 before becoming a theater Kapellmeister
Kapellmeister
Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...
and composer for Volksbühne
Volksbühne
The Volksbühne is a theater in Berlin, Germany. Located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in what was the GDR's capital....
in 1918. From 1920 to 1922, he conducted the Akademische Orchester and between 1925 and 1945, he taught music theory and composition at the Berliner Musikhochschule
Berlin University of the Arts
The Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK is a public art school in Berlin, Germany, one of the four universities in the city...
. He also co-founded the German division of the International Society for Contemporary Music
International Society for Contemporary Music
The International Society for Contemporary Music is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.ISCM was established in 1922, in Salzburg. Its core activity is the World Music Days Festival, held every year at a different location. The festival includes cutting edge productions...
and served as conductor of the Junger Chor. During the Third Reich
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, his music was classified as "undesirable" by the Nazi authorities, and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he almost completely stopped composing. From 1946 to 1949 he directed the city Konservatorium and beginning in 1955, he headed the department of composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
and theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
at the Berliner Musikhochschule. His best-known pupils were Eduard Erdmann
Eduard Erdmann
Eduard Erdmann was a Baltic German pianist and composer.Erdmann was born in Wenden in Livonia. He was the great-nephew of the philosopher Johann Eduard Erdmann. His first musical studies were in Riga, where his teachers were Bror Möllersten and Jean du Chastain and Harald Creutzburg...
and Sergiu Celibidache
Sergiu Celibidache
- Biography :Celibidache was born in Roman, Romania, and began his studies in music with the piano, after which he studied music, philosophy and mathematics in Bucharest, Romania and then in Paris...
. He died in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
Tiessen composed two symphonies
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, a dance drama and incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for a number of plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
, some Music for String Orchestra, a Totentanz
Danse Macabre
Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre , Danza de la Muerte , Dansa de la Mort , Danza Macabra , Dança da Morte , Totentanz , Dodendans , is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's...
-Suite
Suite
In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
for small orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, chamber works
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
, pieces for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
and organ, lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
er, and choral
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
music. The music of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, who in 1917 had helped Tiessen obtain a job at the Berlin State Opera
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
, influenced much of his early works: the First Symphony is dedicated to Strauss. From 1918 onwards his musical idiom inclined more towards an individual form of Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
, to which his many theatre scores contributed in evolving a highly dramatic, free-form style.
Works
- Symphony No. 1 in C, 1910–11
- Symphony No. 2 "Stirb und Werde", op.17, 1911–12
- Natur-Trilogie for piano, op.18 1913
- Amsel-SeptetSeptetA septet is a formation containing exactly seven members. It is commonly associated with musical groups, but can be applied to any situation where seven similar or related objects are considered a single unit, such as a seven-line stanza of poetry....
t (Blackbird Septet), op.20 1914-15 - Hamlet-Suite, 1919–21
- Incidental music for Merlin by Karl Leberecht ImmermannKarl Leberecht ImmermannKarl Leberecht Immermann was a German dramatist and novelist.He was born at Magdeburg, the son of a government official. In 1813 he went to study law at Halle, where he remained, after the suppression of the university by Napoleon in the same year, until Frederick William III of Prussia's...
- Incidental music for Die armseligen Besenbinder by Carl Hauptmann
- Incidental music for The Post OfficeThe Post Office (play)The Post Office is a 1912 play by Rabindranath Tagore. It concerns Amal, a child confined to his adopted uncle's home by an incurable disease. W...
by Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature... - Incidental music for AntigoneAntigone (Sophocles)Antigone is a tragedy by Sophocles written in or before 442 BC. Chronologically, it is the third of the three Theban plays but was written first...
by SophoclesSophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides... - Incidental music for Masse Mensch by Ernst TollerErnst TollerErnst Toller was a left-wing German playwright, best known for his Expressionist plays and serving as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, for six days.- Biography :...
- Incidental music for HamletHamletThe Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
by William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, op.30 - Incidental music for CymbelineCymbelineCymbeline , also known as Cymbeline, King of Britain or The Tragedy of Cymbeline, is a play by William Shakespeare, based on legends concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobelinus. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance...
by Shakespeare - Incidental music for Advent by August StrindbergAugust StrindbergJohan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
- Incidental music for The TempestThe TempestThe Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
by Shakespeare - Three Pieces for Piano, 1923
- String Quintet, op.32
- Salambo, dance drama, op.34 1924
- Incidental music for Abenteuer in Moll by Hanns Braun, 1924
- DuoDuet (music)A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...
-SonateSonataSonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
for violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and piano, 1925 - Incidental music for Don Juan und Faust by Christian Dietrich GrabbeChristian Dietrich GrabbeChristian Dietrich Grabbe was a German dramatist.Born in Detmold, Lippe, he wrote many historical plays and is also known for his use of satire and irony. He suffered from an unhappy marriage...
, 1925 - Vorspiel zu einem Revolutionsdrama, op.33 1926
- Incidental music for Musik by Hauptmann, 1934
- Concertante Variations for Piano and Orchestra, 1961