Helmut Winschermann (; 22 March 1920 – 4 March 2021) was a German classical oboist, conductor and academic teacher. He founded the Deutsche Bachsolisten ensemble for historically informed performances, and was their conductor from 1960 until his death. They made many recordings and toured internationally, especially to Japan.
Life and career
Winschermann was born in Mülheim an der Ruhr in 1920. He first studied violin at the Folkwangschule where he was pointed at the oboe which he studied with . He studied also at the
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...
. After only one year of oboe studies, he was engaged at the
Witten
Witten () is a city with almost 100,000 inhabitants in the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis (district) in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Geography
Witten is situated in the Ruhr valley, in the southern Ruhr area.
Bordering municipalities
* Bochum
* Dortmun ...
municipal orchestra, followed by Bad Homburg and Oberhausen. He served in the military in World War II. After the war, he was principal oboe with the Rundfunkorchester Frankfurt.Biography AllMusic by Robert Cummings. Retrieved 27 August 2013
With the flautist Kurt Redel and harpsichordist Irmgard Lechner, he was a co-founder of the chamber music ensemble Collegium Pro Arte, later called the Collegium Instrumentale Detmold.
In 1956 he was appointed principal chair of the oboe department at the
Hochschule für Musik Detmold
The Hochschule für Musik Detmold is a university-level music school situated in Detmold, Germany.
Academics
The Hochschule offers performance degrees in composition, all orchestral instruments, piano, voice, opera, art-song, conducting, as we ...
, having taught there since 1948 when the institution was founded. His students include
Hansjörg Schellenberger
Hansjörg Schellenberger is a German oboist and conductor born in 1948.
He won the first prize at the German Jugend musiziert Competition with seventeen, which led to a scholarship enabling him to further his education at Interlochen (Michigan ...
,
Fumiaki Miyamoto
(born November 3, 1949) is a Japanese classical oboist and conductor.
Career
Miyamoto started his oboe lesson at Toho Gakuen High School with Seizo Suzuki, and began his worldwide career at the age of 18, when he moved to Germany to study with H ...
Telefunken
Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the ''Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ('General electricity company').
The name "Telefunken" ap ...
LGX 66065 in the UK. He maintained a touring schedule as a soloist, and frequently collaborated with the
Cappella Coloniensis
Cappella Coloniensis is a German orchestra founded by the West German Radio in Cologne in 1954 for the purpose of introducing historically informed performance of Baroque music to the listening public.
In 1998 the orchestra received the Georg Phil ...
Karl Münchinger
Karl Münchinger (29 May 1915 – 13 March 1990) was a German conductor of European classical music. He helped to revive the now-ubiquitous Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel, through recording it with his Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in 1960. (Jean ...
's
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra (Stuttgarter Kammerorchester) is a German chamber orchestra based in Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar ...
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
and his baroque contemporaries. He initially divided his time between playing the oboe and conducting the group, but later focussed on conducting solely. Under his direction they have made a multitude of recordings and toured widely internationally. They are particularly popular in Japan, having visited there at least 14 times.
In 2010 the group celebrated its 50th anniversary in a concert at the
Beethovenhalle
The Beethovenhalle () is a concert hall in Bonn. It is the third hall in that city to bear the name of Bonn-born composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
History
The first Beethovenhalle was a temporary structure built in 1845 during the inauguration of ...
in
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
, with the 90-year-old Winschermann conducting his own orchestration of Bach's ''
Goldberg Variations
The ''Goldberg Variations'', BWV 988, is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also hav ...
''. He turned 100 in March 2020. He was found dead at his home in Bonn on 4 March 2021, eighteen days short of his 101st birthday.
Honours
* In 1970, Winschermann was awarded the Officer's Cross of the
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...
.
* In 1992, he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
* In 2013, he received the
Telemann Prize
The Telemann Prize is an annual classical music award for special achievements in interpretation, research and cultivation of the life and work of Georg Philipp Telemann.
Since 1987, the city of Magdeburg has awarded the prize every year in March ...
of
Magdeburg
Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river.
Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebu ...