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Gabriel Dessauer (born 4 December 1955) is a German cantor, concert organist, and academic teacher. After studies with Diethard Hellmann and Franz Lehrndorfer, he was responsible for the church music at St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden from 1981 to 2021, conducting the Chor von St. Bonifatius until 2018. Besides normal church services, he conducted them in regular masses with soloists and orchestra for Christmas and Easter and a yearly concert. In 1995 he prepared the choir for a memorial concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, performing Britten's War Requiem with choirs from countries involved in the war, and concerts in Wiesbaden and Macon, Georgia. Programs of choral concerts included Hermann Suter's Le Laudi in 1998, the German premiere of Rutter's Mass of the Children in 2004, and the world premiere of Colin Mawby's Bonifatiusmess in 2012 which he had commissioned for the choir's 150th anniversary. The concert of 2008, Vivaldi's Gloria and Haydn's Nelson Mass , was also performed at San Paolo dentro le Mura in Rome.
In 1985 Dessauer founded a project choir, later named Reger-Chor, dedicated to rarely performed sacred music for choir and organ. It developed into a German-Belgian collaboration, with regular concerts at the St. Salvator's Cathedral in Bruges.
Dessauer is an internationally-known organ recitalist. He has lectured at international conferences, especially about the music of Max Reger, who was a member of the St. Bonifatius parish. He was an organ teacher on the faculty of the Hochschule für Musik Mainz from 1995 to 2013.
Dessauer was born in Würzburg, the son of Guido Dessauer and his wife Gabrielle. He received his Abitur at the Kolleg St. Blasien in 1974. He then studied church music at the Richard-Strauss-Konservatorium in Munich for a year, studying organ with Elmar Schloter. From 1975 to 1980, he studied church music and concert organ at the Musikhochschule München with Diethard Hellmann and Klemens Schnorr . He continued his studies with Franz Lehrndorfer and received the Meisterklassendiplom (master class diploma) in 1982. [1] He was a member of Karl Richter's Münchener Bach-Chor.
Dessauer was the organist for services at the Kolleg St. Blasien 1971–1974, then at the Akademie Tutzing for one year and conductor of the choir of the Protestant parish in Tutzing. From 1975 to 1981 he was cantor of St. Andreas in Munich. [1]
Dessauer has been the cantor at St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden, the central Catholic church in the capital of Hesse, since 1981. He is the conductor of the 107-member Chor von St. Bonifatius, founded in 1862, of the children's choir Kinderchor von St. Bonifatius, and of the Schola for Gregorian chant. The church choir sings at services, including regular orchestral masses by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert for Christmas and Easter, accompanied by members of the orchestra of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, with soloists from the Hochschule für Musik Mainz such as Andreas Karasiak and students. In 2011 they performed the Mass No. 1 in B♭ major by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and Hans Leo Hassler's Missa super Dixit Maria in 2012. On Dessauer's initiative, the organ built in 1954 was refurbished by Hugo Mayer Orgelbau in 1985.
Every year, typically on 3 October, German Unity Day, Dessauer has conducted choral concerts of works such as Mendelssohn's Elias , Ein deutsches Requiem of Brahms, and Verdi's Messa da Requiem . [2] Both Chor and Kinderchor appeared in performances of Hermann Suter's Le Laudi (1998 and 2007), and in the German premiere of John Rutter's Mass of the Children in 2004. In 2006, Dessauer conducted Karl Jenkins's Requiem, composed in 2004. In 2010, he chose works by Bach, including his Mass in G minor and choral movements from cantatas BWV 140, BWV 12, BWV 120 and Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29. [3] In 2011 he conducted Haydn's Die Schöpfung . The children's choir sang along with the soprano. [4]
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the choir in 2012, Dessauer commissioned Colin Mawby to compose the Missa solemnis Bonifatius-Messe. Mawby wrote the Mass in 2011 for the forces available at the church (soprano, choir, children's choir, oboe and organ), and the work was premiered on 3 October 2012. [5] [6] The organist was Ignace Michiels from St. Salvator's Cathedral in Bruges, soprano Natascha Jung, and oboist Leonie Dessauer. [7] A second performance took place on 3 November in the Frankfurter Dom, with organist Andreas Boltz. [6] In 2013 he performed Schubert's Mass No. 6 along with his Unfinished Symphony. [8] [9] The concert of 2014 was John Rutter's Magnificat . [10]
Dessauer first continued the tradition of the Stunde der Kirchenmusik ("hour of church music") monthly concert, and then began a series Boni-Musikwochen instead, grouping choral and organ concerts around a theme within the span of one to two weeks. The Musikwochen 2010, Reger und mehr ("Reger and more"), presented concerts given by Kent Tritle and Ignace Michiels, among others. [11]
Dessauer appeared with the Chor von St. Bonifatius in Azkoitia and San Sebastián on a Cavaillé-Coll-organ (1986) at both churches, at the Limburg Cathedral (1987), in St. Jakobus, Görlitz (1990), and in Memphis, Tennessee (1996). They appeared in Rome in 2008, when they performed Vivaldi's Gloria and Haydn's Nelson Mass in San Paolo dentro le Mura in concert, and sang during mass at St. Peter's Basilica. [12]
Dessauer has appeared in recitals in Europe and the U.S., at the Washington National Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. He played the Kotzschmar organ at the Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, and in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. In 2004, he lectured at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Los Angeles on the choral music of Max Reger, who was a member of the parish of St. Bonifatius while he studied and lived in Wiesbaden. In 2005, Dessauer played at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in San Diego. [2] In 2010, he gave a recital at St. Ignatius Loyola, New York.
Since 1992, Dessauer has conducted events for the Rheingau Musik Festival called the Orgeltour (organ tour), visiting historic organs in the region. The first tours covered historic organs of the Rheingau; later ones extended to the cathedrals of Worms and Speyer, Würzburg, and Fulda. [1]
Until 2010, Dessauer played a regular concert on New Year's Eve on the Walcker organ at the Marktkirche, Wiesbaden, together with church organist Hans Uwe Hielscher. To celebrate the bicentenary of Franz Liszt's birth in 2011, he played three major organ works by the composer on instruments that were built around the time of the compositions, Fantasy and Fugue on the Theme B-A-C-H , Variations on Bach's "Weinen, Klagen" (1863), and Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale Ad nos ad salutarem undam . [13]
In 2014, Dessauer toured in the US, playing concerts at the Washington National Cathedral, at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, California, and at the Salt Lake Tabernacle organ in Salt Lake City. [14]
In 2020, Dessauer organised the Winterspiele concert series to honour the 150th anniversary of Louis Vierne, playing his Third Organ Symphony, among others, [15] in the summer instead of winter because the planned concert was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. [16]
Dessauer retired at the end of 2021, succeeded by Johannes Schröder. [17]
From 1995 to 2013, Dessauer was an organ teacher at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz, part of the Gutenberg University in Mainz. [1]
In 1985, Dessauer invited singers to form a choir to perform a single work, the Hebbel-Requiem of Max Reger in the organ version by the Munich organist and composer Max Beckschäfer. [11] The name Reger-Chor was chosen in 1988, when the next project was dedicated to the German premiere of Joseph Jongen's Missa op. 111. Later projects included one of the first performances in Germany of Rutter's Requiem , recorded on the Reger-Chor's first CD in 1990. In 2001 an international collaboration began with the organist Ignace Michiels, organist of St. Salvator's Cathedral in Bruges, bringing together singers from Flanders and the Rhein-Main Region to perform an annual concert both in Germany and Belgium. In 2003 he conducted the premiere of the organ version of Reger's Der 100. Psalm by François Callebout.
In addition to works by Reger, Dessauer chose rarely-performed church music by composers such as Herbert Howells, Benjamin Britten, Herbert Sumsion, Maurice Duruflé, Edward Elgar, Frederick Delius, William Lloyd Webber, Jules Van Nuffel, Joseph Ryelandt, Andrew Carter, Kurt Hessenberg, Rupert Lang, Morten Lauridsen, and Eric Whitacre. In 2015 he conducted Bach's Missa of 1733 in B-minor in the newly-edited parts for the Dresden court, with members of the orchestra of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden. [18]
In 1999 Dessauer collaborated with Ignace Michiels, in a joint project to bring a century of violence to a close. The same programme was performed in both Bruges and Wiesbaden by the Cantores and Chor von St. Bonifatius choirs, with Michiels playing the organ and Dessauer conducting. The concert in Bruges on 23 October 1999 was named Eeuw van zinloos Geweld (Century of meaningless violence) and expressed it using Maurice Duruflé's Prélude et Fugue sur le nom d'Alain, Jules Van Nuffel's In convertendo Dominus , Jehan Alain's Litanies, Rudolf Mauersberger's Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst , Gerald Hendrie's Exsultate from the sonata In praise of reconciliation, and Duruflé's Requiem. The Wiesbaden concert was called Versöhnungskonzert zum Ende des Jahrhunderts (Concert of reconciliation at the end of the century).
In 1995 Dessauer prepared the choir for a memorial concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. On 8 May 1995, Britten's War Requiem was performed in a ceremony of the government of Hesse at the Kurhaus Wiesbaden, with choirs from countries who were opponents during the war: the Swindon Choral Society from Swindon, UK, the Macon Civic Chorale from Macon, Georgia, and the Schiersteiner Kantorei conducted by Martin Lutz. A year later they took part in a performance of the work with similar forces in Macon.
In November 2009 Dessauer performed Duruflé's Requiem again, this time with a choir of volunteers who wanted to commemorate the Holocaust in a Gedenkkonzert gegen Antisemitismus, or a concert against Antisemitism. Janina Moeller sang the mezzo-soprano solo, and Petra Morath-Pusinelli was the organist. [19]
In November 2015 Dessauer was the organist for a sing-along organised by the Diocese of Limburg in St. Bonifatius. A choir of 150 volunteers studied Gabriel Fauré's Requiem and performed it as part of the Wiesbadener Bachwochen festival. As a contrast, Dessauer performed Olivier Latry's Salve Regina organ meditations, [20] in which, according to a reviewer, he made the listener feel "...the complete cosmos of humanity, including the cruelty and violence, from which this prayer asks for salvation from" ("den gesamten Kosmos des Menschlichen nachempfinden ließ, einschließlich der Grausamkeit und Gewalt, aus der in diesem Gebet um Errettung gebeten wird"). [21]
Hans Uwe Hielscher is a German organist and composer. He was organist and carillonneur at the Marktkirche in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, from 1979 to 2009, and has played internationally as a concert organist.
Andreas Karasiak is a German classical tenor in opera and concert.
Max Reger's 1915 Requiem, Op. 144b, is a late Romantic setting of Friedrich Hebbel's poem "Requiem" for alto or baritone solo, chorus and orchestra. It is Reger's last completed work for chorus and orchestra, dedicated in the autograph as Dem Andenken der im Kriege 1914/15 gefallenen deutschen Helden.
Ignace Michiels is a Belgian organist, choral conductor and organ teacher. He is internationally known as a concert organist.
The Reger-Chor is a German-Belgian choir. It was founded in Wiesbaden in 1985 and has been conducted by Gabriel Dessauer in Wiesbaden. Since 2001 it has grown to Regerchor-International in a collaboration with the organist Ignace Michiels of the St. Salvator's Cathedral of Bruges. The choir performs an annual concert both in Germany and Belgium of mostly sacred choral music for choir and organ. Concerts have taken place regularly in St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden, and in the cathedral of Bruges in its series "Kathedraalconcerten". The choir performed additional concerts at other churches of the two countries and in the Concertgebouw of Bruges.
St. Martin is the name of a Catholic parish and church in Idstein, Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis, Germany. The official name of the church is Katholische Pfarrkirche St. Martin. The name of the parish became St. Martin Idsteiner Land on 1 January 2017, when it was merged with five other parishes. The parish is part of the Diocese of Limburg.
Max Beckschäfer is a German organist, composer and academic who taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and the Hochschule für Musik Augsburg-Nürnberg. He received commissions from the Munich Biennale, the concert series Klangspuren, the Dresdner Kreuzchor, the Palucca-Ballettschule Dresden and Die Singphoniker. He wrote an organ version of Reger's Hebbel-Requiem.
St. Bonifatius in Wiesbaden, Germany, is the central Catholic parish and church in the capital of Hesse. The present building was designed by architect Philipp Hoffmann in Gothic Revival style and built from 1844 to 1849. Its twin steeples of 68 m (223 ft.) dominate the Luisenplatz. The parish is part of the Diocese of Limburg.
Marktkirche is the main Protestant church in Wiesbaden, the state capital of Hesse, Germany. The neo-Gothic church on the central Schlossplatz was designed by Carl Boos and built between 1853 and 1862. At the time it was the largest brick building of the Duchy of Nassau. It is also called Nassauer Landesdom.
Martin Lutz is a German musicologist, conductor and harpsichordist. He was the musical director of the concert choir Schiersteiner Kantorei in Wiesbaden from 1972 to 2017, and founded the biennial festival Wiesbadener Bachwochen in 1975.
Petra Morath-Pusinelli is a German organist.
The Chor von St. Bonifatius is a German mixed choir, the church choir of the parish St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden. It was founded in 1862 as a male choir and was a mixed choir from 1887. From 1981 to 2018, it was conducted by Gabriel Dessauer, who founded two children's choirs. The group sang the first performance in Germany of John Rutter's Mass of the Children and performed in Azkoitia, San Sebastián, Görlitz, Bruges, Macon and Rome. Colin Mawby composed for the choir the Missa solemnis Bonifatius-Messe for the 150th anniversary, celebrated on 3 October 2012. From 2019, the choir has been conducted by Roman Twardy who conducted in his first concert Dvořák's Stabat Mater. On 1 January 2022, Johannes Schröder became church musician. He conducted as his first choral concert Verdi's Requiem in an arrangement for small ensemble.
Andreas Boltz is a German church musician and composer. From autumn 1993 until 2011, he was the Regional Cantor of the diocese of Mainz in Darmstadt. He was awarded the Premio Speciale in 1992 at the International Composers Competition in Trieste. Since June 2011, he has been cathedral music director at the Frankfurt Cathedral.
Rheingauer Kantorei, now Neue Rheingauer Kantorei, is a mixed choir of the Rheingau region in Germany, performing mostly sacred music in services and concerts.
Der 100. Psalm, Op. 106, is a composition in four movements by Max Reger in D major for mixed choir and orchestra, a late Romantic setting of Psalm 100. Reger began composing the work in 1908 for the 350th anniversary of Jena University. The occasion was celebrated that year with the premiere of Part I, conducted by Fritz Stein on 31 July. Reger completed the composition in 1909. It was published that year and premiered simultaneously on 23 February 1910 in Chemnitz, conducted by the composer, and in Breslau, conducted by Georg Dohrn.
Johannes Hill is a German baritone in concert and in oratorios, who has performed internationally. Singing in choirs from age 10, he has performed major roles in oratorios, such as both Jesus and Pilate in Bach's Passions, and Pope Francis in the premiere of Laudato si'. He has also performed in vocal ensembles such as Kammerchor Stuttgart and Collegium Vocale Gent.
Roman Twardy is a German teacher, academic lecturer and the conductor of the Wiesbadener Knabenchor boys' choir in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany. The choir appears internationally and has made recordings. From 2019, Twardy is also interim conductor of the church choir Chor von St. Bonifatius in Wiesbaden.
Wiesbadener Bachwochen is a biennial festival of music around Johann Sebastian Bach in Wiesbaden, the state capital of Hesse, Germany. It was initiated and has been run by Martin Lutz. The city awards the Bachpreis der Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden to an organist who wins the festival's international competition.
Johannes M. Schröder is a German organist, composer and Catholic church musician. After several years responsible for the church music at the Westerwälder Dom, he moved to St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden. He is also a lecturer and a music editor.
Fabian Kelly is a German tenor and choral conductor. As a singer, he is most active in concert, including historically informed performances in works such as Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine and Handel's Messiah. He recorded a revival of Franz Ignaz Beck's opera L'isle déserte and Mozart's Requiem.