Bertold Hummel and Kurt Heynicke

The relationship between the Hummel family and Kurt Heynicke and his wife Grethe had probably existed since Heynicke's resettlement to Merzhausen in 1943. Bertold Hummel's father Gustav - from Hüfingen (near Donaueschingen) - was transferred to Merzhausen in 1932 as head teacher at the local primary school. Gustav Hummel, culturally interested and an outstanding personality in the community (honorary citizen), certainly did not remain a stranger to Heynicke for long. The Heynicke couple often refer to their parents in letters to Bertold Hummel.

13 October 1947 Bertold Hummel sets a lullaby by Heynicke to music.

On 22 October 1956, at Heynicke's suggestion, a joint, good-humoured "Badisches Weinlied" for a wine song singer and piano is composed, which Heynicke sends to the SWF's light music department and which is rejected as too unpopular.

After the premiere of Hummel's opera "Des Kaisers neue Kleider" in June 1957 at the Städtische Bühnen Freiburg, Heynicke wrote a favourable letter to Hummel with small suggestions for improving the libretto. This probably resulted in joint opera plans.

Around 1959, Heynicke proposed two pieces: "Die Laternengarage" (The Lantern Garage): two cars, a lantern, a scrap dealer and a policeman are the main characters in the piece. Houses are the chorus. The text is sent to the publisher Bernhard Bosse, who wants Hummel to write an opera for young people. No further negotiations take place. "The Virgin and the Devil": Clara, a flower arranger, is looking for a husband. She is sent to the devil by the celestial man allocation centre because she complains about the man assigned to her. This results in unusual situations and a moral. There are brief sketches by Bertold Hummel for both works. Heynicke is clearly the more active part of the team in both projects. As the pieces are written in a conversational style typical of Heynicke, Hummel will have found little inspiration to provide musical accompaniment for the dialogues.

In 1961, Bertold Hummel set a song for Merzhausen to music, written by Kurt Heynicke for the 100th birthday of the men's choir Eintracht Merzhausen, led by Hummel's father Gustav Hummel.

In 1971, Bertold Hummel set Kurt Heynicke's poem "Lobgesang", a motet for 4-part mixed choir a capella, for a songbook published by the Breisgauer Sängerbund (Edition Tonos Darmstadt), which found its way into the composer's catalogue of works.

Hummel visited Heynicke again and again when he visited his parents and his sister Elisabeth in Merzhausen. They sent each other Christmas and New Year greetings.

The above-mentioned libretti as well as several poems for children, which Heynicke offered to Bertold Hummel to set to music, are preserved in the composer's estate.

Martin Hummel

Peter Rau: Kurt Heynicke - Fate of a poet in Merzhausen 1943 - 1985 - A booklet for reading and pictures

 

Biography

Kurt Heynicke, born in Liegnitz in 1891, a working-class child, primary school pupil, office worker, businessman.
Are you smiling, man, who feels this blessed existence?
Oh, we are nothing. An animal in a stable. Only our soul is sometimes a cathedral in which we can pray to each other.

Born 20 September 1891 in Liegnitz, Silesia. Primary school: Liegnitz, Dresden, Zeitz, Berlin. Then office worker for an insurance company. Tuberculosis at the age of twenty. Healing centre. Resumed earlier attempts to write after recovery. First poem in HERWARTH WALDEN's <Sturm>. Others follow. First volume of poetry <Rings fallen Sterne> also published there. War. Four years as a soldier. Also lyrically productive as a soldier (see section <Die Hölle Erde> in <Das namenlose Angesicht>). After the end of the war, again an office worker in a small town in the Mark Brandenburg, in Duisburg at the Klöckner Group, in Solingen at Deutsche Bank. In between attempts to live as a freelance writer. Stay with the poet ALEXANDER VON BERNUS at Neuburg Abbey near Heidelberg. There spiritual contact with STEINER's anthroposophy. 1919 Kleist Prize for my volume of poetry <Das namenlose Angesicht>. 1933 dramaturge at the LUISE DUMONT - GUSTAV LINDEMANN theatre in Düsseldorf, which had already staged my play <Der Kreis> in 1920. After two years, I went to the municipal theatre in Düsseldorf, where I also directed. These theatre years were very fruitful for me: I wrote a number of plays, all of which were performed at good theatres.

In 1932 I moved to Berlin, where I also worked for Ufa. From a certain time onwards, I felt drawn to the novel. I confess openly that they are novels that are labelled <entertainment> in Germany. Eventually I moved from Berlin to the edge of the Black Forest near Freiburg. I am a storyteller, but I would be a bad storyteller if I didn't want to entertain my readers. I wrote a series of radio plays after the war and won two awards for them. And above all, I still write poetry. Including the human developments of a life, I have remained a believer, as I was in the early days of my lyrical work. Kurt Heynicke (1951)

SZ on his 90th birthday