Bertold Hummel met the organist and cantor Dieter Weiss at the beginning of their time studying together in Freiburg in 1947. Dieter Weiss inspired him to write a number of organ and choral works, which he also premièred. These included the well-known Alleluia for organ op. 44, for which he was the dedicatee. The two musicians remained in friendly contact until the end of Hummel's life.

Works that were premiered by Dieter Weiss

Sacred concerto for baritone and organ

Introduction, Arioso and Fugue for organ op. 4

Dem König der Ewigkeit, cantata for choir and 7 instruments op. 17

Adagio for organ op. 21

Fantasy for organ op. 25

Alleluia for organ op. 44

Biography

Dieter Weiss (*18 November 1922 in Essen; † 5 August 2009 in Bayreuth) was a German organist, church musician, conductor and lecturer.

Weiss studied organ at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg with Walter Kraft and with Jeanne Demessieux in Paris. He devoted himself to conducting studies with Konrad Lechner and Hermann Scherchen.

From 1952 to 1959 he was organist and cantor at St Johannis in Hamburg-Altona and from 1959 to 1971 organist at St Marien in Flensburg and director of the Flensburg Bach Choir.

From 1965, Dieter Weiss was a lecturer in organ playing at the former Schleswig-Holstein Music Academy and North German Organ School in Lübeck, now the Lübeck University of Music.

From 1971 to 1986, Weiss was state church music director of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg and organist at St Lamberti in Oldenburg, where he was responsible for the disposition of the Führer organ, which was installed there in 1972, and founded the Lamberti Choir in 1971 and the Demantius Choir Oldenburg in 1973.

 

In 1997, Dieter Weiss wrote the following book about the composer:

Bertold Hummel was born on 27 November 1025 in Hüfingen near Donaueschingen. His father was an elementary school teacher, organist and director of the church choir in Hüfingen. The boy received music lessons from an early age, sang soprano in the church choir and soon had a natural relationship with the organ and Gregorian chant. This love and experience of Gregorian chant, Hummel later said, had a decisive influence on his compositional work: Just as the chorale can be explained as an additive summation of building blocks, in Hummel's works one recognises mosaic stones that are subject to constant metamorphosis.
Hummel's love of the organ is also easily explained by his years in Hüfingen. His first organ composition is Introduktion, Arioso und Fuge op. 4, which immediately reveals a very organ-like style of writing in three different movements. Over the years, the series of organ compositions has grown to 16; apart from a few liturgical pieces, most of the works are written in a demanding, virtuoso style that always suggests distinctive registration possibilities. These works for solo organ are emphatically complemented by compositions with additional instruments, of which at least the Biblical Scenes for oboe and organ op. 45 and above all the Metamorphoses on B-A-C-H for winds and organ op. 40 deserve mention.

I got to know Hummel at the beginning of our time together as students at the Freiburg Hochschule (1947), where he worked for seven years with Harald Genzmer and also studied cello in Atis Teichmanis' masterclass. This laid the foundations for his versatility from the outset, which had a decisive influence on his musical thinking. As a cellist, he became involved in many chamber music circles and soon premièred his first string quartet op. 3. The first work from his pen that brought us together was the cantata "So kehre nun, meine Seele, zu deiner Ruh" for bass and organ, which we premièred in the Melanchtonkirche in Haslach on the Sunday of the dead in 1951.

The time we spent studying in Freiburg at the university, which was newly founded in 1946 under the flutist Gustav Scheck as director, was a unique time of new beginnings, especially as Baden was in the French occupation zone. We saw paintings by Braque, Leger and Picasso for the first time. The complete cycle "Miserere" by Rouault was also shown. Organ music by Olivier Messiaen (whom Hummel would later describe as one of the "beacons of European music history") was heard on various occasions in the cathedral, and his "Quatuor pour la fin de temps" was played by four professors in the stairwell of the Wenzinger-Haus on Münsterplatz (the main building of the university), leaving deep, moving impressions. Walter Kraft, Konrad Lechner, Fritz Neumeyer, Edith Picht-Axendfeld and Carl Seemann played a decisive role in shaping the musical climate at the university. In addition, the Kunstverein offered Emil Nolde's marvellous flower watercolours for 450 new German marks in a sales exhibition. These and similar impressions created an exciting and stimulating atmosphere that greatly favoured the intensity of his studies.
After completing his studies, Hummel undertook various concert tours with a smaller ensemble, including a tour of Africa. This journey came to a beautiful conclusion with his marriage to the violinist Inken Steffen, who from then on was able to accompany her husband with her superior expertise and great empathy. Six highly musical sons became the pride of the family.

From 1956 onwards, Bertold Hummel worked as a cantor at St Konrad's Church in Freiburg, while also working as a freelancer for Südwestfunk radio. The constant contact with his choir inspired him to write numerous choral compositions; he soon knew how to keep the difficulties for choral voices down to earth and still write a good-sounding movement. During this time, a Missa brevis (op. 5a) was premiered by the Freiburg Cathedral Choir at the Donaueschingen Music Festival (1952). In addition to other masses, the Freiburg cantor (who also knew how to play the organ well in church services) wrote numerous monophonic liturgical pieces and motets, as well as some very different, essential cantatas, among which "Dem König der Ewigkeit" op. 17 (with small wind ensemble) is particularly close to my heart. This vocal strand then reaches its climax with the oratorio "Der Schrein der Märtyrer" op. 90 in honour of Saint Kilian, which had its singular premiere in Würzburg Cathedral with several choirs, solos, orchestra and three organs (1989), an instrumentation that could hardly be surpassed. But Hummel's great respect for amateur music-making led him to return time and again to pieces that were easier to perform, most recently for the Boys' Choir Meeting in Salzburg (1996).

Bertold Hummel is still a committed chamber musician today, and it is evident that half of his works are written for chamber music ensembles: still a revelation for any composer. A further quarter of his oeuvre is reserved for sacred music. The second string quartet op. 46 in particular is characterised by great intensity. Most of the instruments are represented in the chamber music for wind instruments, including solo pieces: an incredible wealth is revealed in these sections of the catalogue of works. Of course, the strings are not neglected; the songs after letters by Vincent van Gogh for baritone solo and quartet op. 84 are a welcome addition to the instrumentation, still a rare combination even after Schoenberg. The composer also had a special affinity for percussion, for which he wrote a whole series of very colourful solo pieces. The greatest success in this field to date has been the Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra op. 70, which was premiered in 1985 and has since become an international hit. Hummel's rhythmic and sonorous talent celebrates a real triumph here.

Of his four stage works, the chamber opera "The Emperor's New Clothes" op. 10 in particular has made a name for itself. Hummel's 15 symphonic orchestral works are definitely a major focus of his oeuvre. The composer's rich sense of colour is expressed here in an overwhelming art of orchestration, which always provides surprises. For this reason alone, all of these pieces are exciting to listen to. The Second Symphony "Reverenza" op. 30 (composed in 1966) and the "Visions" op. 73 (composed in 1979/80) are particularly outstanding. In "Reverenza ", the composer's fully chromatic thinking also leads to the deliberate use of twelve-tone fields such as polytonal surfaces, interspersed with singing counterpoints. The technique of permanent metamorphoses reaches an overwhelming climax in the final movement with the development of the "Te deum" theme, which fits in as a matter of course. The shorter "Visions" are composed after St John's Apocalypse and relate it to the human plight of our time. Enchanting spherical sounds slip in between the brass-dominated sections; the piece ends - very quietly - with the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem. Nowhere in either work are there uncontrolled emotions, the clarity of the structures always remains decisive, occasionally there are melodic traces of Hindemith, but not of Genzmer.

In 1963, Hummel was appointed as a composition teacher at the then State Conservatory in Würzburg. In his passionate teaching activities, he confesses that he is not an avant-gardist, but feels much more connected and committed to the community; for him, the triangle of composer - performer - listener exists as the essential basis of musical life. In his lessons, he respects the personality of his counterparts and tries to "pick them up" from their point of view and convince them with his very confident judgement. As a result, Hummel's numerous pupils each have very different musical profiles - to the delight of their teacher, whose stylistic approach is not narrowly limited but always open to essential suggestions. His many homages to Bruckner, Berg, Messiaen and others, whose style he convincingly amalgamated, are to be understood in this way. He led his masterclass for composition until 1988; during this time, the Würzburg Institute advanced through his activities and initiatives to the rank of a university for music, of which Hummel was elected president in 1979 and still serves as honorary president today. Until 1988, he also provided essential and highly regarded stimuli for the development of contemporary music with the concerts of his Würzburg Studios for New Music.

Bertold Hummel has been honoured many times: in 1956 he was awarded a scholarship by the Federation of German Industry, in 1960 he received the Composition Prize of the City of Düsseldorf, in 1988 the Cultural Prize of the City of Würzburg and in 1996 the Friedrich Baur Prize for Music; in 1982 he was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts.

The clarity of his musical thinking is reflected in his clear, vivid notation, which is directly "descriptive" for playing and provides many suggestions. Even after the publication of premièred pieces in print, I much preferred to continue playing such pieces from the autograph. You can feel that the composer wrote these scores down with great responsibility. The security of this notation is also impressive: this is the work of a master of our time, whose wide-ranging oeuvre demonstrates great spirituality, a strong spiritual connection and triumphant musicality.

Dieter Weiss (1997)