Gustav Schmahl

Gustav Schmahl (29 November 1929 – 4 October 2003) was a German violinist and university lecturer. He was the only student of David Oistrach from the GDR. Schmahl worked at times as concertmaster of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and from 1973 to 1984 as rector of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig.

Life

Schmahl was born in 1929 in Herford (Westphalia) the son of a violinist and grew up in Berlin. He received his first violin lessons at the age of seven.[1] In his parental home Hausmusik was cultivated, the concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin had a formative effect on the young Schmahl.[2] After attending secondary school and passing his Abitur in 1949, he studied for two semesters with the violin virtuoso Max Strub at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold.

After the founding of the GDR he moved to Gustav Havemann at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in East Berlin in 1950. The influential composer Hanns Eisler was also one of his teachers there. In 1950, he was a prize winner of a competition of the FDJ[3] and in 1951 he qualified for the III World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin.[4] A study visit led him as the only[5] violinist from the GDR to the Soviet pedagogue and virtuoso David Oistrach at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1953, he was a prize winner of an international music competition in Bucharest (Romania).[1] Later (1962), he took part in the violin category at the second International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.[6]

Schmahl, who had joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the GDR, became the first concertmaster of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.[1] Concert tours took him around the world as far as the US, and he repeatedly gave concerts in Italy and the Soviet Union.[2] He performed with the most important orchestras of the GDR among others the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, the Dresdner Staatskapelle and the Dresdner Philharmonie as well as the Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester.[2] He also played together with the Händelfestspielorchester Halle.[7] He had encounters with renowned conductors of those years such as Franz Konwitschny, Kurt Sanderling and Kurt Masur. Schmahl also championed Neue Musik by GDR composers, for example, he repeatedly performed Ernst Hermann Meyer's concerto of 1963/64 and was responsible for the premiere of the first two violin concertos (1963 and 1973) by Gerhard Rosenfeld in Dresden.[2] In 1982, followed Siegfried Köhler's Violin Concerto.[8] He played chamber music among others works by Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev and Hans Werner Henze.[2] Together with Hugo Steurer (piano) and Clemens Dillner (violoncello), he appeared with the Arte-Trio since 1956.[9]

In 1963, Schmahl took on a teaching position and in 1970 a full-time lectureship at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber. In 1971, he became professor for violin and head of a master class. In 1973, he moved to Leipzig, where from 1973 to 1984 he was Rudolf Fischer's successor as rector of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. Later, he was responsible for all master classes at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin. Among his master students were among others Heike Janicke, Torsten Janicke, Ralf-Carsten Brömsel, Conrad Muck and Wolfgang Hentrich.[10]

In 1971, he was elected to the board of the international Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft.[11] In 1977, he was a member of the committee for the Beethoven Honour of the GDR.[12] He was also a member of the committee of the Verband der Komponisten und Musikwissenschaftler der DDR.[13] As a juror, he participated in the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig.[2]

Schmahl lived in Zehlendorf during his studies and moved with his family to Kleinmachnow in the GDR only in 1957.[14] After the political turnaround he founded a taxi company.[15] In 2003, Schmahl died in Caputh at the age of 73 in the Schwielowsee community in Landkreis Potsdam-Mittelmark.[16]

Family

The writer and journalist Martin Ahrends (born 1951), who took his wife's name when he married, and the trumpeter Daniel Schmahl (born 1969) are his sons. An Ausreiseantrag (application for departure) by Ahrends to the Federal Republic of Germany was granted in 1984. In Hamburg, he worked as an editor for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.[15] Like other musicians, Schmahl was in contact with the former German Chancellor and Zeit publisher Helmut Schmidt and his wife Loki Schmidt at Brahmsee.[17]

Awards

Further reading
  • Gabriele Baumgartner: Schmahl, Gustav. In Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (ed.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ, DDR. Vol. 2: Maassen – Zylla. K. G. Saur Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0, p. 783.
  • Günther Buch: Namen und Daten wichtiger Personen der DDR. 4th revised and extended edition, Dietz, Berlin among others 1987, ISBN 3-8012-0121-X, p. 279.

References
  1. New Lieder Recital with Erna Berger in 1953 under Hermann Abendroth. In the Berliner Zeitung, 21 February 1958, Vol. 14, Issue 44, p. 5.
  2. Conversation with Georg Antosch: Virtuoso, juror and music teacher. In the Neue Zeit, 5 July 1980, Vol. 36, edition 157, p. 7.
  3. Die Preisträger der FDJ. In: Neues Deutschland, 31 May 1950, Vol. 5, edition 123, p. 3.
  4. Our best up-and-coming soloists: Final round for the III FDJ]. World Festival. In the Neues Deutschland, 27 July 1951, Vol. 6, edition 171, p. 4.
  5. Reinhard Schmiedel: Album sheet for Prof. Günter Kootz on the occasion of his 90th birthday. In MT-Journal No. 47, June 2019, p. 85f.
  6. Emil Gilels: 2. Tschaikowski-Wettbewerb. In die Neue Zeit, 4 January 1962, Jg. 18, edition 3, p. 1.
  7. Reiner Gebauer: A city honours its composer: a review of the 22nd Handel Festival. In the Neue Zeit, 21 June 1973, vol. 29, edition 144, p. 5.
  8. Violin Concerto premiere. In the Neue Zeit, 23 March 1982, vol. 38, edition 69, p. 4.
  9. Das Arte-Trio und Christian Ferras: Neue Veranstaltungen der beliebten Konzertreihe. In the Berliner Zeitung, 24 January 1958, Jg. 14, edition 20, p. 6.
  10. Hans Peter Altmann: Zum Tod des Geigers und Lehrers Gustav Schmahl. In the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, 7 October 2003, p. 8.
  11. E. H. Meyer wieder Vorsitzender. Händel-Gesellschaft wählte ihren neuen Vorstand. In the Neue Zeit, 23 June 1971, vol. 27, edition 145, p. 7.
  12. Committee for the Beethoven Honour 1977. In the Berliner Zeitung, 17 December 1976, Vol. 32, edition 300, p. 6.
  13. Glückwünsche für das neue Verbandspräsidium: Wolfgang Lesser als Präsident wiedergewählt. In the Berliner Zeitung, 14 February 1987, Vol. 43, edition 38, p. 7.
  14. Astrid Priebs-Tröger: Den Nebel des Unausgesprochenen lichten. In the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, Nr. 232, 6 October 2014, p. 20.
  15. Karim Saab: Mein Vater hat mich verraten (My father betrayed me). In the Märkische Allgemeine, 27 July 2015.
  16. Gestorben: Gustav Schmahl. In Der Spiegel 42/2003, p. 210 (PDF).
  17. Reiner Lehberger: Loki Schmidt: die Biographie. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-455-50285-5, p. 239.
  18. Christoph Rink: Chronologie des Händelpreises. In Mitteilungen des Freundes- und Förderkreises des Händel-Hauses zu Halle e.V. 1/2012, pp. 20–25, here p. 24.
  19. Ehrentafel. In Universitätszeitung der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig, Nr. 45/1984, 7 December 1984, p. 2.
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