Max Strub
Strub was a connoisseur of the classical-romantic repertoire, but also devoted himself to modern music, among others he gave the world premiere of Hindemith's Violin Sonata No.
[2] In his Mainz atelier in the Frauenlobstraße 25 in Neustadt, European violinists such as Willy Burmester, Joseph Joachim, Jan Kubelík[3] and Henri Marteau[4] as well as the still young Franz von Vecsey, whom he in turn photographed for free.
[2] The writer Carl Zuckmayer, four years his senior, with whom he was friends throughout his life, belonged to the cello group,[7] Strub gave his first public concert at the age of twelve.
[15] In 1918, Strub was awarded the Mendelssohn Prize in Berlin,[16] combined with a performance under the conductor Otto Klemperer that was well-received in the local press.
[16] During his time with the orchestra in 1924 at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Busch was responsible for the premiere of Strauss’ Intermezzo, "bürgerlichen Komödie mit sinfonischen Zwischenspielen" (bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes).
[22] In 1923, Strub replaced Gustav Havemann as first violinist in the Petri Quartet, to which the orchestra musicians Erdmann Warwas (2nd violin), Alfred Spitzner (alto) and Georg Wille (violoncello) belonged.
[27] A friend of the family of his wife Hilde Neuffer, who was married in 1922, the director of the music school Bruno Hinze-Reinhold, moved the Strubs to Thuringia the state capital of Weimar.
[28] From April 1925, Strub was the full-time head of one of the two violin classes (alongside Robert Reitz) at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar as successor to the pedagogue Paul Elgers.
[28] According to the Weimar composer and music teacher Eduard August Molnar jr., his vocation, however, also brought forth envious people who only approved of such a teaching obligation around the age of 60.
[32][34] In 1927, following in the footsteps of Robert Reitz, he formed together with Bruno Hinze-Reinhold (pianist) and Walter Schulz (cellist) the Weimarer Trio.
[39] In his apartment on the Lützowufer (Landwehr Canal) in 1931, Strub, who at the time was separated from his wife Hilde, accommodated the American composer Aaron Copland as well as Barbara and Roger Sessions.
[41] Public pressure from conservative cultural policy circles in Berlin and the economic consequences of the Great Depression led to the closure of the progressive house in 1931.
[48] Strub made his solo debut in 1937 with Brahms' violin concerto at the BPO under the musical direction of the Swiss conductor Robert F.
[26] During the 1935 Summer,[53] he succeeded the US-American violin virtuoso Florizel von Reuter[54] in the piano trio of the pianist Elly Ney and the cellist Ludwig Hoelscher, with whom he played until 1940.
He also persuaded his students Hans-Ulrich Tiesler, Max Kayser and Franz Hopfner to perform the world premiere of Gieseking's Kleine Musik for three violins, which took place in the theatre hall of the Berlin University of the Arts.
[63][45] In 1934, due to his Berlin commitments, he declined a call to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, where he was to take over the direction of a master class.
[66] After the Second World War, Strub was temporarily accepted in Wels in Upper Austria by the composer friend Johann Nepomuk David.
[69] For the 1947/48 winter semester,[70] Strub took over the master classes for violin, interpretation and chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold; In 1957 he received a professorship.
[72] During the Cold War he was repeatedly (1964–1966) invited as guest professor to the International Music Seminar of the GDR at the Hochschule für Musik "Franz Liszt" Weimar, his former workplace.
[79] During his time in Berlin, Strub met the Swiss pianist Edwin Fischer, who accepted him into his chamber orchestra specialising in historically informed performance, supported him as a duo partner and encouraged him to form a string quartet.
[53] The ensemble was one of the most famous German string quartets, played at home and abroad and was allowed to take over almost half of the Gewandhaus chamber concerts in Leipzig from the end of the 1930s.
[86] According to the musicologist and student of Strub Albrecht Roeseler, both primarii, without belonging to the "world elite", "enriched musical life [...] in the 1950s and 1960s through varied activities as soloists, chamber musicians, concert masters and teachers".
[93] His engagement for Ludwig van Beethoven went so far that in 1938 he participated with Hoelscher and Ney in the Beethoven-Fest of the Hitlerjugend in Bad Wildbad in the Black Forest[66] and heroized the composer there.
[96] After a complete cycle of all Beethoven string quartets at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, in 1942 Strub became the fifth violinist ever – after Adolf Busch, Lucien Capet, Eugène Ysaÿe and Joseph Joachim – honorary member of the Società del Quartetto di Milano.
46 by Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling, which was scheduled as the 6th symphony concert of the Philharmonic Society of Bremen for 6 January 1941 with Strub as soloist and the Bremer Philharmoniker conducted by Hellmut Schnackenburg,[106] was withdrawn at short notice by the composer.
[88] Strub war selbst dedicator of Pfitzner's Duo für Violine, Violoncello und kleines Orchester op.
[123] As a soloist Strub performed Pfitzner's violin concerto with the BPO under Hans Knappertsbusch (in the Berlin Philharmonic) and Joseph Keilberth (in the Admiralspalast).
[127] The music historian Fred K. Prieberg quoted Strub in the Handbuch Deutsche Musiker 1933–1945 among others with the following words referring to Pfitzner, which Strub found in a publication about the Kulturpolitisches Arbeitslager of the Kultur- und Rundfunkamt der Reichsjugendführer 1938:[66] The harmonious triad: creator, reproducer and receptive, as Pfitzner says, here in the concerts for the Hitler Youth, there is a reverent note, and a fundamental tone forms the basis on which the guardians of German art should grow up!
[150] The character of the famous cellist Felix in the film comedy All These Women (1964) by the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman is loosely based on the German violinist Jonathan Vogler, a pseudonym for Strub.
Due to the 80 percent destruction[152] the Electrola building in Berlin at the end of the Second World War, it is difficult to reconstruct the violinist's complete discography.
