Felix Woyrsch


Felix Woyrsch was a German composer and choir director.

Life

Woyrsch was born in Troppau, just over the Prussian border in Austrian Silesia. He was raised in Dresden and later Altona, a suburb of Hamburg, in a lower middle class family of limited means. Largely self-taught in music, he did study for some time with Ernst August Heinrich Chevallier.
He became director of the Altonaer Liedertafel in 1887 and director of the Altona Church Choir in 1893. In 1895 he took over the direction of the Altona Singakademie, and became organist at the Friedenskirche and then at the Johanniskirche. In 1903 he created municipal symphonic and folk music concerts.
Already a music professor since 1901, he was elected into the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1917. He worked as a conductor, and as Altona's city music director, until 1931. In 1936 he was given the Goethe Medal, followed by the Beethoven Prize in Berlin upon his retirement in 1937.

Style and legacy

His main influences included his friend Brahms as well as Bach, Palestrina, Lassus, and Heinrich Schütz. Although Woyrsch quite valued the music of his contemporaries such as Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Hindemith, he felt less committed to musical innovation as a composer. Rather, he devoted himself to the development of a personal style in the classical-romantic tradition. After his death, he quickly fell into oblivion.
Woyrsch's compositions include seven symphonies, five further works for orchestra, three operas, 100 songs, and a violin concerto. His music was widely performed in Germany until 1933, with his oratorio works in particular receiving attention and recognition. Works of his were also performed in the USA, England, Netherlands and Russia. After the seizure of power by the national socialists, interest in his works began to wane.
The Pfohl-Woyrsch-Gesellschaft in Hamburg, founded in 1993, has set itself the goal of preserving the musical heritage of Felix Woyrsch and making it accessible to a wider public.

Works

Operas