Lighter-hearted music was also represented by a number of works, which were composed at the suggestion of the great musician Willi Stech.

Bertold Hummel 1969

In 1951, the conductor and pianist Willi Stech took over as director of the SWF’s Small Light Music Orchestra, which employed 16 musicians, in Freiburg. By 1953 at the latest, he seems to have become aware of Bertold Hummel, for it was in that year that Hummel was commissioned to write a ‘concertante overture’, which was performed as early as February. This marked the beginning of an artistically fruitful and financially lucrative collaboration with this orchestra – which was very popular at the time – and its conductor. Between 1953 and 1961, Hummel provided the Small Light Music Orchestra with nine original compositions as well as twelve arrangements of popular piano works for solo piano and chamber orchestra, which were immediately produced by the SWF and broadcast on numerous occasions. However, his close bond with the musicians and Willi Stech lasted well beyond this period. As late as 1973, Willi Stech secured a composition commission for Hummel from the legendary jazz producer Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, who was commissioning compositions based on paintings by the artist Hans Thoma. A trilogy (by three different composers) intended to be performed by the Willi Stech Grand Orchestra never came to fruition, as Willi Stech was unable to see the project through to completion for health reasons. Although Hummel submitted his composition “Stille vor dem Sturm” on time, the world premiere did not take place under Stech’s baton.

Bertold Hummel: Works for the SWF Small Light Music Orchestra

• South African Suite for Chamber Orchestra
• Concertante Overture for Chamber Orchestra
• Pan 56 for solo flute and chamber orchestra
• Scherzo for bassoon and chamber orchestra
• Fantasia bucolica for viola and chamber orchestra
• Burlesque for piano and chamber orchestra
• Divertimento capriccioso for harpsichord and chamber orchestra (after Pergolesi)
• Little Waltz for chamber orchestra (1958) – manuscript of the score preserved
• Serenade for Violin and Small Orchestra (1961) – lost
• Arrangements of popular piano works

Biography
The conductor and pianist Willi Stech was born on 29 November 1905 in Krefeld. From 1922 to 1927, he studied piano and composition at the Cologne University of Music and subsequently performed as a pianist in concerts both at home and abroad.

He joined the NSDAP as early as the beginning of 1933, which rapidly advanced his career. On 21 July 1933, he was appointed ‘senior clerk’ at the newly founded Deutschlandsender in Berlin, where he worked as the in-house pianist and programme organiser. In 1934, together with Harold M. Kirchstein, he co-founded the top-tier band “Die Goldene Sieben”, which was disbanded in 1939 because its style was considered too “swinging”. Around 1940, he was commissioned to put together an ensemble capable of performing not only dance music but also light music to a high standard. This dance orchestra of Deutschlandsender was in great demand; live radio performances, appearances on variety afternoons and television programmes were among its regular duties. As Stech took Anglo-American dance music as his model – he held a licence to listen in on enemy broadcasts – this music was also suitable for the German overseas programmes broadcast via shortwave. Together with Barnabás von Géczy, Stech was appointed director of the German Dance and Light Music Orchestra in Prague in 1944.

After the war, the musician was taken prisoner by the Czechs and later worked as a pianist in Switzerland. From 1951, Stech took charge of the SWF’s ‘Small Entertainment Orchestra’ in Freiburg, which comprised 16 musicians and which he conducted until 1970. He then founded his own “Willi Stech Grand Orchestra”, with which he went on to produce some remarkable recordings. The musician passed away on 28 April 1979 in Ehrenstetten, Baden.

A glimpse into the workshop of the ‘Small Light Music Orchestra’ of Südwestfunk Freiburg

Recommended reading: Behr, Wolfgang Martin: The ‘Kleines Unterhaltungsorchester’ of Südwestfunk under the direction of Willi Stech. Studies on the role and significance of a radio orchestra (1992). Published: Baden-Baden 1994 (= Südwestfunk, Series on Broadcasting History, Volume 3).