"Wenn es nicht so tieftraurig wäre,
müßte es lächerlich wirken, daß man alles das, was auf künstlerischem
Gebiet neue Wege sucht und auf das Denkvermögen der Zuhörer, Zu - und
Beschauer einige Anforderungen stellt, mit dem geflügelten Wort 'Kulturbolschewismus'
abtut." -
K. Hartmann
Hartmann, rather unknown, is nowadays known as a Modernistic
composer, composer of 8 symphonies and a lot of small pieces. Everywhere
in his music you can hear his inner '
resistance' to German National
Socialistic Party of Hitler in the thirties.
From a family known for its
contributions to
art,
science and
philosophy, Klaus Hartmann is born in
1905 in
Munich. When he's 20 he is taught the workings of
contrapunction and
composition by Haas .
In
Berlin he becomes a pupil of Scherchen, who
also taught
Paul Hindemith. Here Hartmann gets interested in
Modern Music. In
1933 he writes a piece called '
Kantate für Männerchor a capella nach
Worten von Becher und Marx' but in the music he stipulates that he's a
pacifist and
humanist. In side notes to his music he writes he doesn't
want to do anything with the
Reichs Kultur Kammer, led by the Nazis.
His music is getting internationally
well received: especially in
France. While his music is played outside the
country Hartmann has to appear for the Kammer. They try to convince him to
travel outside of the country and propagate his music and the government
abroad.
Hartmann refuses, stops composing in
publicity, burns his last works and hides away in a little village south of
Munich. Here he writes and composes about the
horrors of war and the
death trains to the camps (' Todenmarsch nach
Dachau' 1945).
After the war his works are re-published
and internationally well received again. His works are based on works of
famous writers/pacifists like
Walt Whitman and
Emile Zola. Hartmann
initializes the
Musica Viva festivals, and is honoured with different
prices for his
inner resistance against the nazis.
When in 1959 a newly opened synagogue is
sprayed with anti-Jewish slogans, Hartmann joins his East-German friends
and
Henze,
Dessau,
Blacher and
Wagner-Regeny to set the '
Jewish
Chronicle' to music as a protest against the hatred. Hartmann composes
the second move, '
The Ghetto'. The total piece is written for orchestra, but
lacks the use of any string instruments: the composers agree to rule out any form of
musical instruments that can cause
sentiments to rise.
However, Hartmann never hears the complete piece:
the East German authorities won't allow him into
East Germany to attend the performance.
In 1963 he dies after finishing his 8th Symphony
Appeared first in 1998 in a Dutch monthly magazine, and then publiced
on my website in the series 'Contemporary composers'.