KARL AMADEUS HARTMANN – CENTER

The International Karl Amadeus Hartmann Society mourns the death of its founding member Maestro Kurt Masur.

As the New York Philharmonic announced, the long-standing principal conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic passed away in Greenwich (USA) on Saturday morning, December 19, 2015, at the age of 88. The outstanding conductor did not only see himself as a performing musician, but also as a “homo politicus”, as Federal President Joachim Gauck emphasized in a statement. “Viele Menschen werden niemals vergessen, wie er sich im Herbst 1989 für grundlegende Veränderungen in der DDR, für die Freiheit der Menschen und die Demokratie eingesetzt hat.” [“Many people will never forget how he stood up for fundamental changes in the GDR, for people’s freedom and democracy in autumn 1989.”] Kurt Masur lived music as a humanistic message.

Enclosed you will find links to some press articles:

BR Klassik, Nachruf Kurt Masur

Frankfurter Allgemeine, Nachruf Kurt Masur

Süddeutsche Zeitung, Zum Tod von Kurt Masur

Die Zeit, Nachruf Kurt Masur

In cooperation with the Ukrainian State Orchestra Kyiv Kamerata, the Goehte Institute Ukraine, the Kiev Summer Music Festival, the Composers’ Association Ukraine and the Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e.V., a concert with works by Karl Amadeus Hartmann and Wolfgang Rihm will take place on June 4, 2015 in the concert hall of the Academy of Sciences in Kiev (Ukraine).

Together with the chief conductor and artistic director of Kyiv Kamerata Valeriy Matyukhin, the conductor and director of the Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e.V. Andreas Hérm Baumgartner – on whose initiative the project came into being – will conduct this concert, which is special in every respect: an act of solidarity, a sign of solidarity in an existentially threatening political situation in which Hartmann’s music with its message of humanism cannot be missing. In an accompanying introductory event with the theme “Klänge des Friedens” [“Sounds of peace”] the question of what music can do, what should music and art be able to achieve, will be explored.

Current development, conflict and peace research also deals with this topic. Especially with composers like Hartmann, who have a sensibility for socio-political grievances, who use seismographic antennas to perceive developments that are not yet obvious, track down their potentially fatal dynamics and deal with them in their art. Research speaks of the ability of “early warning”. Years before 1933, Hartmann had already warned in every possible way of the danger of National Socialism for society, humanity and humanism.

In each work he dealt with this in a different way, invoking resistance in alliances between cultures, religions and peoples; he pointed out alternatives, drew a different world view. It is also astonishing that in his last work – the “vocal scene” for baritone and orchestra – he once again demonstrated the ability of “early warning”: assimilating texts by Jean Giraudoux, he conveys an apocalyptic vision of the end of a civilization drawn into by a spiral of death. The initial dynamic of progress does not only turn into regression, but into decline, into the “evil of the great empires, the deadly evil”. Downfall of the banking world, social structures, nuclear catastrophe and the deadliest evil: that even the “Seelenschatz” [“Treasure of soul”] is lost. An unfortunately all too topical subject.

PROGRAM
Wolfgang Rihm: nature morte – still alive

Karl Amadeus Hartmann:
Concerto funebre
4th Symphony

Katya Suglobina, Violin
Kyiv Kamerata
Direction: Valeriy Matyukhin, Andreas Hérm Baumgartner

Andreas H. Baumgartner with the outgoing Management Board members Bernhard Pfau, Kurt Scharl and Dr. Raphael Woebs (from left to right) on December 12, 2014.

PRESS RELEASE (originally in German)

Munich (February 6, 2015)

The General Assembly of the Karl-Amadeus-Hartmann-Gesellschaft e. V. elected a new Board of Directors on December 16, 2014. Under the chairmanship of the confirmed managing director Andreas Hérm Baumgartner (conductor, artistic director), the conductor Christoph Poppen was elected president. Appointed to the board were the musicologist Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rathert (LMU-Munich) as deputy managing director, the lawyer Andreas Ammersbach as treasurer and the musicologist Thomas Schulz as secretary/media director.

The members of the Karl Amadeus Hartmann Society include not only music lovers and scholars, but above all personalities from national and international cultural life, including Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann, Udo Zimmermann, Friedrich Cerha, Fabio Luisi, Ingo Metzmacher, Marek Janowski, Kurt Masur, Thomas Zehetmair, Ingolf Turban, Siegfried Mauser and Reinhold Kreile.

Contact:

Karl-Amadeus-Hartmann-Gesellschaft e.V.
Franz-Joseph-Straße 20
D-80801 Munich

Tel.: +49 (0)89 34 79 67

Fax: +49 (0) 3212 1357 315

E-mail: info@hartmann-gesellschaft.de

Agenda:

Ordinary General Meeting 2011

On December 9, 2011, 4:30 p.m.

1. Welcome
2. Report of the Management Board on the situation of the society
3. Report of the treasurer about the business year 2010
4. Auditor’s report on the 2009 financial year
5. Discharge of the Management Board
6. Election of the auditor for 2010
7. Short review of the activities of the company in 2011
8. “Karl-Amadeus-Hartmann-Jahr 2013” [“Karl Amadeus Hartmann Year 2013”]
9. Other (e. g. concerns, suggestions from members, open discussion)

The Managment Board reserves the right to make any changes or additions.

Andreas Hérm Baumgartner
Managing Director of the Karl Amadeus Hartmann Society

We have succeeded in winning Minister of State Dr. Wolfgang Heubisch as patron of the Karl Amadeus Hartmann Year 2013!

We would also like to express our sincere thanks through this medium. This is a very important signal from the Free State of Bavaria, which also expresses the importance of the composer in Bavaria.

With the support of the State Ministry of Science, Research and Art, the Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e.V. tries to initiate and coordinate a wide variety of events, concerts, exhibitions etc. Furthermore, for the first time, scientific papers on specific themes from Hartmann’s work are to be awarded.