Volker Bräutigam (23 May 1939 – 31 May 2022Obituary
Reformed Church Leipzig. Retrieved 5 June 2022.) was a German composer, and

church music Church music is Christian music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. History Early Christian music The onl ...

ian.

Life and career

Bräutigam was born in the village of

Frohnau Frohnau () is a locality in the Reinickendorf borough of Berlin, Germany. It lies in the extreme northern part of the city. Frohnau is an affluent area characterized by many patrician villas from the early 20th century. During the Cold War, it wa ...

in southeast Germany. From 1949 and 1953 he sang with the

Dresdner Kreuzchor The Dresdner Kreuzchor is the boys' choir of the Kreuzkirche in Dresden, Germany. It has a seven-century history and a world-wide reputation. Today, the choir has about 150 members between the ages of 9 and 19, from Dresden and the surroundin ...

, at that time under the direction of

Rudolf Mauersberger Rudolf Mauersberger (29 January 1889 – 22 February 1971) was a German choral conductor and composer. His younger brother Erhard was also a conductor and composer. Career After positions in Aachen and Eisenach, he became director of the ren ...

. In 1957 he entered the Musikhochschule Leipzig and remained there until 1962 studying composition under

Johannes Weyrauch Johannes Weyrauch (20 February 1897 − 1 May 1977) was a German composer and cantor. Life Childhood Weyrauch was born on 20 February 1897 in Leipzig. His mother, Maria Große, who had received a thorough musical education and worked in several ...

as well as conducting, piano, organ, and film music. After completing his studies he worked for the next two years as an assistant organist and a free-lance composer for the animation department of the

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

film studio

DEFA DEFA (''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'') was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence. Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PRO ...

. In 1962 he succeeded Johannes Weyrauch as

cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...

at the in Leipzig, a post he would hold for over 30 years. In the 1980s and early 90s he also taught organ and composition at the

Evangelische Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Halle The Evangelische Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Halle (Saale) is a university, specialised in music, in Halle an der Saale. It was established as the Evangelischen Kirchenmusikschule on 18 April 1926 by the consistory of the Evangelical Church of ...

. He was appointed professor of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig in 1993. Bräutigam's compositions, which are primarily choral and organ music, are stylistically diverse. The critic for ''

Westdeutsche Zeitung The ''Westdeutsche Zeitung'' (''WZ'') ( en, West German Newspaper) is one of the largest regional newspaper in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Its headquarters is in Wuppertal with additional offices in Düsseldorf and Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ...

'' described his ''Epitaph for

Maximilian Kolbe Maximilian Maria Kolbe (born Raymund Kolbe; pl, Maksymilian Maria Kolbe; 1894–1941) was a Polish Catholic priest and Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German death camp ...

'' as "a work of surprising sounds, melodic lines, and chords, a piece that translates the ideas of contemporary music".

Bernard Holland Bernard Holland (born 1933) is an American music critic. He served on the staff of '' The New York Times'' from 1981 until 2008 and held the post of chief music critic from 1995, contributing 4,575 articles to the newspaper. He then became the Nat ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' noted that his choral piece ''Drei Seligpreisungen'' (Three

Beatitudes The Beatitudes are sayings attributed to Jesus, and in particular eight blessings recounted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and four in the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of Luke, followed by four woes which mirr ...

) was characterised by "long melodic lines with wide intervals, sometimes using them in opposing keys". His

chorale prelude In music, a chorale prelude or chorale setting is a short liturgical composition for organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works of J.S. Bach, who wrote 46 ...

, ''Christ ist erstanden'', has jazz influences.

Selected works

* ''Epitaph for

'' (1975). * ''Aus der Tiefe rufe ich, Herr, zu dir'' (1970/1995) * ''Drei Jazzverwandte Choralvorspiele''

References

External links

*
Biography
on bach-cantatas.com
''Einführung: J.S.Bach Markus-Passion mit Evangelienmusik Volker Bräutigam - 2005''
on the website of the {{DEFAULTSORT:Brautigam, Volker 1939 births 2022 deaths People from Annaberg-Buchholz Sacred music composers 20th-century classical composers German classical organists Academic staff of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig