Curriculum Vitae
Helmut Walcha(27th Oct. 1907 ~ 11th Aug. 1991)
< Insight instead of Sight >
If you must
memorize all of the Bach's works, perhaps you will think you'd
rather die. But you will be very
surprised that the man who memorize all of the Bach's works for
organ and cembalo is perfectly blind, and that he began it even
after his blindness, which spent about 15 years. The hero who
completed what an ordinary person cannot even imagine, and who
said "The disease
which cut me off permanently from the visible world also opened
up and smoothed for me the way to inner perception.", was Helmut Walcha.
Helmut was
born on 27th December 1907, in Leipzig. His father Emil was the
head of a post office, and his mother was named Anna Ficken. He
had himself lost much of the vision by the aftereffects of the
smallpox vaccine at 1908, but not all the sights as his parents
soon knew it and entered elementary school at six. He liked music
by virtue of his parents, and was taught the score-reading by
sister. By accident, he was moved by Bach's F major invention and
later interested in organ, so practised it the church near home.
His parents considered that he had to enter music conservatory,
but Helmut preferred only playing.
When Helmut was twelve, Feintheizen(?)
who was the bassist of the Gewandhaus Orchestra gave him the
chance of the meeting with legendary Arthur Nikisch(1855~1922)
after he was impressed by Helmut's playing. It is said that
Helmut played an improvisation after German folktone at the
meeting. Nikisch knew Helmut's gifts, recommending normal musical
training. Feintheizen taught Helmut the piano for a year. But
gradually Helmut's sight was deprived. Chronic keratitis
threatened his weak sight, and operation totally failed.
Therefore, Helmut perfectly lost the light after sixteen(1923).
In 1922,
he entered Leipzig Conservatory and was taught by Günther Ramin(1898~1956), who was famous for the
authorities of Bach. Later he succeeded the Thomas Kantor after
Karl Straube(his teacher) in 1940, who gave the premier of the
Art of Fugue. Ramin thoroughly cultivated him, and Helmut
greatly progressed at piano, organ, and musical theory.
He gave the first recital at St. Andre Church, which
was well accepted. He became vice-organist of Thomaskirche as
Ramin's assistant in 1926, and graduated and passed qualifying
exam for organist in Leipzig Conservatory summa cum laude
next year. Same year he came into chamber music research center
in Leipzig, and elected organist of the Peace Church in Frankfurt
in 1929. His Frankfurt ages thus began. He was elected organ
faculty Frankfurt Hochschule fur Musik in 1933. This school
became national in 1938, and he professor of Church Music
Department. He married Ursula Koch in the next year, when he made
Bach series in Frankfurt and gave concerts for a week every year.
At the end of WWII he temporarily stopped musical activities, but
restarted concert appearances in 1946. He took the post of Dreikönigskirche(Three
King's Church) in Frankfurt. In 1947, the first newly made organ
after WWII was installed at the auditorium of Frankfurt
University by his effort. He played(and improvised) organ each
week at Dreikönigskirche, and gave lectures on Bach's
165 organ works with playing them at Frankfurt University. His
good activities made Frankfurt central
position of Bach playing.
In 1947, he recorded Bach's works with the small
organ of St. Jakobi Church in Lübeck at Archiv Produktion. His
recordings by EMI and Archiv Produktion increased his fame all
over the world. He appeared Bach bicentenary festival at
Göttingen and taught apprentice from the world. Frankfurt am
Main rewarded him by Goethe medal by memory of his great
contribution to music. He was revered as the master of Bach
before he resigned in 1977 because of the bad health, and
finished his respectable life on 11th Aug. 1991.
His main repertoires were Baroque era, including
Sweelink, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, J.S.Bach, and Händel, all of
which he learned after becoming blind. Of course he had to
memorize all. When he did so, two women helped him; mother before
wedding and wife(Ursula) after wedding. They played one by one of
the each voice by piano, then Helmut
memorize the voices and 'synthesize all of the voice parts in his
head'. He made up his mind to memorize all the works of Bach at
25 years old, which he took 15 years to finish the job. From this
thorough practice(is there any better method for landscaping
Bach's polyphonic structure?), trained technique, and long
experience rooted his stylistic music, with masterly nobility
(and stubborness). Strict tempi and rhythm and well-considered
beautiful registration teach us manly facet of Bach's organ
works. As he grew older, his music warmer, more delicate, and
more beautiful. I wish he had not resigned at (only!) 70 years
old.
There
are many of his recordings in DG and EMI, total about
50 items by CD. Most of all, the supreme is the second complete recording of
Bach's organ works(Archiv). This
recording is monumental in all the Bach recordings. I cannot
forget the beautiful lucidity of chorale preludes, and
(toccata/prelude/fantasy and) fugues are proud of the perfect
construction of music and technique. His last record 'Orgelmeister vor Bach(Organ masters
before Bach)' is also good(Archiv). He
gave exquisite registration in Pachelbel, Buxtehude, Böhm, etc.
and warmer musical line than younger years. In cembalo works, EMI
recorded most of the Bach's representative works in 1958~62.
He used modern model(Ammer), outstanding
colorful registration in spite of rather dark tone. In special,
English suites, Partitas, and Golberg variations are very good.
In 1970s, he re-recorded the Well-Tempered Clavier with historic
model at Archiv Produktion, which is said to be very
beautiful(transferred to CD by Japanese and French DG). Only one
chamber music recording is complete set of violin sonata with
Szeryng(Philips, by historic model), and it's also well refined
in ensemble.
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| 5 Playing Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune organ | 5 In front of the organ in Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune Church |
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| 5 Playing the Great organ in Saint-Laurens Church, Alkmaar, Netherland |
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Created ; 3rd
Dec. 2000
Last Update ; 14th Mar. 2002