Max Drischner Explained

Max Drischner (31 January 1891 – 25 April 1971) was a German composer, Kantor, organist, and harpsichordist.

Life and work

Max Drischner was born in Prieborn (now Przeworno), Silesia. After completing his A-levels at the grammar school in Züllichau, he started theological studies in 1910 at Leipzig and Breslau. However, after seven semesters he gave this up in order to study the organ, piano and harpsichord at the Berlin Music Academy. A teacher in his principal subject, Wanda Landowska, had a major influence on him.

Between 1916 and the end of the First World War, he was a voluntary medical orderly in France. During this time, he lost the top of a finger on his left hand.

After the war, through self-teaching, he acquired an extensive knowledge about the music before the Bach period. He gave his first harpsichord concerts in Breslau in 1920 and in Brieg in 1923. In Brieg he was trained by Paul Hielscher in organ playing and choir leading. In 1923, he founded a youth choir, that was later united with the choir from St. Nikolai in Brieg. In 1924, he was appointed as cantor and organist of St. Nikolai in Brieg.

During his tenure in Brieg, he composed the majority of his organ and vocal works. He also led his choir to acclaimed success. He also took part in choir and church music conventions. In the interests of the organ movement he had the famous Michael-Engler-Organ restored between 1926 and 1928. From 1927, he traveled at least six times to Norway, in order to study Norwegian folk melodies which would form the basis for many of his compositions. In 1942, in recognition of his ministry in Brieg, he was appointed Kirchenmusikdirektor.

Drischner married Käthe Petran in 1928. In 1929, their daughter Katharina was born. The marriage ended in divorce after in 1938 10 years.

In January 1945, as Brieg was declared a military fortress, Drischner had to flee to Prieborn. In Prieborn, he undertook the ministry of organist in the Lutheran church and also in the Catholic church in nearby Siebenhufen. In the autumn of 1946, Max Drischner, his mother and his sister Margarethe were expelled from Silesia. From then on the three Drischners lived together until the death of the mother in 1957, aged almost 90. Margarethe remained as an indispensable companion to her brother, outliving him by three months.

After short stops in resettlement quarters at Magdeburg and Eimersleben, Max Drischner was for two months the cantor and organist at the Augustinerkirche in Erfurt.

The three Drischners lived in Herrenberg (Württemberg) from 1947 until 1955. In Herrenberg Drischner was the organist and cantor in the Stiftskirche, but this lasted only a few months: In May 1948, after a five-month stay in the University Hospital of Tübingen it was confirmed that due to illness he would be unable to continue in his appointment.

In 1955 the three Drischners moved to Goslar, the partner town of Brieg. In 1956, the City of Goslar honored Max Drischner with the award of the City Culture Prize. In the nearby church of the Grauhof Monastery, he took over organ demonstrations, organ concerts and organ ceremonies at the Brieger gatherings ("Brieger Treffen"). It was here as well that he made numerous audio recordings - for a gramophone record and for audiotape letters to friends and relatives.

In 1961, he had special pleasure in being able to renew his contact with his respected teacher Wanda Landowska.

Albert Schweitzer played a highly meaningful role in Max Drischner's life. As early as when he had been a schoolboy he had read Schweitzer's book about Johann Sebastian Bach and already written to him in 1910. Schweitzer had answered promptly and thus had begun a lifelong correspondence. They met each other four times: in 1929 in Frankfurt, Karlsruhe and Königsfeld; in 1932 in Kehl and Strassburg; in 1951 in Herrenberg and in 1954 in Günsbach. Albert Schweitzer never went to Brieg. Drischner gave an account of their meetings in "The friendship between the jungle doctor and a Silesian cantor".

The three Drischners found their final resting place at the cemetery in Lautenthal in the Harz mountains.

Fritz Feldmann wrote in the 1973-edition of MGG (Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart) about Drischner's compositions: "Drischner's reproductive activity was born by the youth movement, unpretencious, serving only the church community and never emphasized the virtuoso. Parallel to that are his compositions which according to his own opinion are captured improvisations that in the line of the ritual want to be intelligible to each church member. They want to avoid modern paths without becoming a slave to the epigonic copy of the style of a specific standard. They are distinguished by an ever tonal melodic that is even with recitative texts songlike and beholden especially to the Silesian and also the Nordic folklore."

Remembrances of and documents from Max Drischner are owned and preserved by Matthias Müller who inherited the whole composer's estate Just before dead of Drischners son in law, Dr.Paul Kast

Works (selected)

The selection begins with the compositions of "Edition Schultheiss" which is the series of works of Max Drischner issued from 1947 onwards by the Publishing Company Schultheiss in Tübingen.The texts of the title pages are usually in several parts: the individual titles (e.g. Hymn of the sun or Worship the Lord) followed by the composition genre (in particular: Passacaglia or Choralfantasy) and to these have been added usually comprehensive directions for the performance. These three parts are always completely reproduced here. Added in circular and squared brackets respectively are also the dates of the transcript and the print.

This collection was taken over in 1995 by the Music Publishers Thomi-Berg in München-Planegg. It is still called Edition Schultheiss. However the second volume of the Brieger Singe- und Spielbuch was removed from the collection.

In addition, both before and after the Second World War, other publishers have released Drischner's compositions. For example:

Only manuscripts or copies of manuscripts have been preserved of other works of Max Drischner.

Hanne-Lore Reetz owns claims possession of the manuscripts. But no one has ever seen them in their hands. Dr. Paul Kast, Drischer's son-in-law and Bach specialist, handed over Drischner's estate, including all manuscripts, to cantor Matthias Müller shortly before his death, as documented by documentary evidence. He owns manuscripts like:

Friedrich Kudell and Peter Zerbaum cite further manuscripts in their directory:

Matthias Müller is owner of all manuscripts, documents, fotos and more. He received this estate, documented, from Drischner's son-in-law Paul Kast. Unfortunately, Drischner's clavichord was stolen by a relative shortly before the estate was handed over. Likewise letters from Albert Schweitzer to Drischner. to own manuscripts of:

He had already previously claimed on www.max-drischner.de that he knew "many more not published works" and he restated this claim in the last sentence of an article about Max Drischner that appeared in MGG in 2001. In 2002, he also reported in "Organ International" about Hesford's discovery in the organ of Niederschwedeldorf and repeated this in the "Almanac 2013 on Culture and History of the county of Glatz”. Unfortunately he refuses to reveal any further information because of bad behavior of members of Drischners family.

Literature

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