Heinrich Werlé (2 May 1887 – 26 May 1955) was a German choir director,

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

and

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

Life

Born in

Bensheim Bensheim () is a town in the Kreis Bergstraße, Bergstraße district in southern Hessen, Germany. Bensheim lies on the Bergstraße Route, Bergstraße and at the edge of the Odenwald mountains while at the same time having an open view over the Rhi ...

, Werlé, son of a civil servant, was first a music teacher at a school in Leipzig, and from 1926 in the rank of a study council. From 1928 to 1945 he taught music at the Pädagogisches Institut of the

Leipzig University Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

.Fred K. Prieberg: ''Handbuch Deutsche Musiker'', In 1933 he joined the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers ...

and was registered with effect from 1 May 1933 under the membership number 2,989,562. He was also a member of the National Socialist Teachers League and the

National Socialist German Lecturers League The National Socialist German Lecturers League (''Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund'', also called ''NS-Dozentenbund'' , or abbreviated ''NSDDB''), was a party organization under the NSDAP (the Nazi Party). Origin and purpose Th ...

. Beside his teaching activity he took over the direction of the chamber choir of the NS-Rundfunkgruppe Gau Sachsen and the ''Abteilung

choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

- und

Volksmusik Alpine folk music (; German's ''Volksmusik'' means "people's music" or as a Germanic connotative translation, "folk's music") is the common umbrella designation of a number of related styles of traditional folk music in the Alpine regions of S ...

'' in the NS-Rundfunkgruppe at the

Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (; "Central German Broadcasting"), shortened to MDR (; stylized as mdr), is the public broadcaster for the federal states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. Established in January 1991, its headquarters are in Leipzig, wi ...

. In his contribution ''Zur Lage der Volksmusik im Rundfunk'' in the Leipzig magazine ''Volk im Werden'', he described the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

as a "period of liberalism lying behind us", which "out of inertial bourgeois comfort even in the popular has mixed so much foreign, false and hypocritical things with each other and intermingled them with each other, that first of all must be cleared away. Only what is true to life and close to the people finds its way directly to the Germans ..The prerequisites for another are not based on a new aesthetic, but rest in the moral strength of responsibility-conscious National Socialism." From 1937 to 1943 Werlé was main editor of the magazine for folk music ''Gut Ton'' in Dresden. After the Second World War he worked from 1946 as professor at the

Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public research university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. MLU offers German and i ...

. In the same year he founded the MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig, which he took over. In 1953 he obtained his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...

with a thesis on ''Musik im Leben des Kindes''. Among his students was

church music Church music is a genre of 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 musi ...

ian Johannes Petzold. Werlé died in Leipzig at age 68.

Work

* ''Methodik des Musikunterrichts auf der Grundstufe''. Kistner & Siegel, Leipzig 1930. * ''Volksmusik im Rundfunk''. Hesse, Berlin 1932. * ''Der Männerchor-Dirigent im Volkslied''. Kistner & Siegel, Leipzig 1932. * ''Franz Schubert. Der Mensch und sein Werk''. Eher, Berlin 1941. * ''Franz Schubert in seinen Briefen und Aufzeichnungen''. S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1948. * ''Musik im Leben des Kindes''. Ehlermann, Dresden 1949.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Werle, Heinrich German music critics 20th-century German musicologists German choral conductors German classical organists Academic staff of Leipzig University Nazi Party members 1887 births 1955 deaths Musicians from Hesse People from Bergstraße (district) Academic staff of the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg

Life

Work

Further reading

References