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Christfried Schmidt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christfried Schmidt (born 26 November 1932) is a German composer and arrangeur.

Life

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Schmidt was born in 1932 as the son of a miller in Markersdorf. In Görlitz, he attended the grammar school and received piano lessons from Humperdinck's pupil Emil Kühnel. From 1951 to 1954, he studied church music at the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik der Evangelischen Kirche der schlesischen Oberlausitz [de] (B-exam) and from 1955 to 1959 with Werner Buschnakowski (organ) and Johannes Weyrauch (music composition) at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig (A-Exam). In Leipzig, he familiarised himself with Neue Musik with Hermann Heyer.[1][2]

From 1960 to 1962, Schmidt was a church musician in Forst. From 1963 to 1964, he worked as an acting bandmaster in Quedlinburg and then from 1965 to 1980 was a freelance piano teacher and choir director in Quedlinburg. In Warsaw, he met the Japanese musicologist Ichirō Tamura, who enabled him to perform his works in Japan. Since 1980, he has been living as a freelance composer in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg.[3] The artistic breakthrough came with the premiere of his oboe concerto performed by Burkhard Glaetzner at the DDR-Musiktagen 1984.[4]

His orchestral work Memento was premiered in 2002 in the Leipziger Gewandhaus by the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fabio Luisi.[5]

In 2019, the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin under Kai-Uwe Jirka premiered his St. Mark Passion from 1975 after 45 years.[6] The highly expressive, headstrong work combines aleatoric compositional procedures (influenced by Witold Lutosławski's controlled aleatoric music) with a polyphonic way of thinking in the wake of J.S. Bach and the Viennese School.[7][8]

Awards and memberships

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Work

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Year Title Premiere year Premiere location
1965 Landnahme 1994 Berlin
1967 1. Symphony. Hamlet
1968 2. Symphony. Martin Luther King
1969 piano concerto 1974 Berlin
1969–1995 Chamber music I-XI
1970 Petite Suite 1970 Tokyo
1970 Psalm 21 1971 Nürnberg
1971 Wind Quintet 1973 Berlin
Chamber music II 1998 Görlitz
1973 Chamber music VI 1983 Berlin
1973 Tonsetzers Alptraum 1976 Dresden
1974 Violin concerto 1991 Berlin
1974 Cello concerto 1976 Leipzig
1975 St Mark's Passion 2019 Berlin
1977 Flute concerto 1978 Berlin
1978 Ein Märchen – kein Märchen 1981 Berlin
1980 Munch-Musik 1981 Leipzig
1982 Die Zeit und die Zeit danach 1985 Berlin
1983 Oboe concerto 1984 Berlin
1985 Orchestermusik I 1988 Berlin
1989 Das Herz. Opera after Heinrich Mann 1996
1996 Clarinet Quintet 1997 Berlin
Memento 2000 Leipzig

Further reading

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  • Ursula Stürzbecher: Komponisten in der DDR. 17 Gespräche. Hildesheim 1979, ISBN 3-8067-0803-7.
  • Georg-Friedrich Kühn: Unbefangen, ungebärdig. Die Extreme des Ausdrucks. Glied der musikalischen Gesellschaft: Christfried Schmidt. In Musik-Texte 4/1984
  • Frank Schneider: Klang-Bilder. Ein alter Aspekt in neuer Musik der DDR. In Bildende Kunst 6/1984
  • Frank Schneider: Christfried Schmidt. In Prospekt Deutscher Verlag für Musik. Leipzig 1987
  • Gerald Felber: Verletzbare Leidenschaftlichkeit. Der Komponist Christfried Schmidt. In Sonntag 36/1987
  • Habakuk Traber: Notizen. Christfried Schmidt zum 60. Geburtstag.In Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 12/1992.
  • Beate Schröder-Nauenburg: Christfried Schmidt. In Komponisten der Gegenwart (KDG). Edition Text & Kritik, Munich 1996, ISBN 978-3-86916-164-8

References

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  1. ^ Christfried Schmidt bei RICORDI
  2. ^ Christfried Schmidt Archived 28 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine beim Kunstberg-Berlin.
  3. ^ Christfried Schmidt on Munzinger-Archiv
  4. ^ Christfried Schmidt Archived 21 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine at the Sächsische Akademie der Künste
  5. ^ Christfried Schmidt im Archiv Zeitgenössischer Komponisten der Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden
  6. ^ Isabel Herzfeld (18 April 2019). "Christfried Schmidt's "St. Mark Passion" will be premiered". Der Tagesspiegel. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  7. ^ "Sing-Akademie zu Berlin – Konzerte". Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  8. ^ "Komponist Christfried Schmidt – Der eigensinnige Modernist". Deutschlandfunk (in German). Retrieved 15 November 2020.
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