On
the occasion of a Memorial Concert on the 27th November, 2002 in the Music College,
Wuerzburg, the following speech was delivered by Martin Hummel, son of the composer: A
warm welcome to you all, who have come together here to remember Bertold Hummel.
For most of you, my father's
name is linked to his compositions, many think fondly back on his heartiness and
humour, some have happy memories of him as a colleague, mentor or friend. For
the family, he has been taken out of our daily life. Whether for the children,
who paint pictures at school of grandfather's coffin decked with flowers, or for
us adults, who in our normal daily pursuits - such a short time after his for
us so unexpected death - are repeatedly caught up without warning in feelings
of deep sadness: we try to grow accustomed to the fact that his voice, his familiar
movements and his touch are no longer with us. This
is not an easy time for us, but we are however aware that, in contrast to some
who have to come to terms with such a severe loss, we have the privilege of doing
this together with many others who share our feelings. The
many people who came together for his impressive requiem in the cathedral, the
many musicians who spontaneously approached us and wanted to honour the deceased
with their art in many different places: they help it to become true that, as
Tagore expressed it so beautifully - the pain melts into song. Today,
on his seventy-seventh birthday, we are especially grateful that the Music College
has considered it a matter of course to organise this concert in memoriam Bertold
Hummel. We are very pleased that so many students were willing, in co-operation
with their teachers, to take a closer look at his work. This
was exactly how my father understood music - as an art that brings about human
contact. Music as an expression of friendship and warmth. It was gratifying
that the numerous obituaries recognised the composer's understanding of his work
as a modest contribution to a more humane world. There
is hardly a composition which he did not dedicate to someone, be it a child, a
great musician or our loving God. He knew for whom he wrote the pieces. As
his grandson Fabian began to play the violin, a little violin concerto was composed
for him - in first position, of course. When the Berlin Philharmonic commissioned
his "Visions from the Apocalypse of St. John", the violin parts were somewhat
more demanding. One or two of his colleagues probably turned up their noses
at this concept of a work of art. But he felt himself to be part of a community.
"No-one lives for himself on this world, he is also there for the sake of all
the others" This motto still hangs today above his piano. Often
a particular event inspired a composition. I still remember well how shocked he
was to hear on the radio on the 4th December, 1976 the news of Benjamin Britten's
death. He withdrew to his study and after a couple of hours played us on the piano
the Adagio which opened this programme. The
rapid mental decay of his zestful friend Dietrich von Bausznern shook him deeply
and was the immediate inspiration for the "in memoriam" we just heard. The
"Ave Maria" (in the German version) was written in 1993 under the impression of
the death of his sister Erika. A year before his own death he revised the composition
and considered the Latin version now the more successful. I feel that in
this work one can hear the mental clarity with which he was fortunate enough to
face his own death. During
the last years of his life, much against his habit of leaving pieces lying around
unpublished for ages, he brought his works to publication and revised earlier
ones. The publication
of "Games with Keys", which he composed and played on occasions such as birthdays
and Christenings of the grandchildren, was accomplished with unusual speed. The
setting of texts for a song cycle on scurrilous poems by Hermann Hesse, which
I had strongly commended to him years ago, was his last composition. Before
I drove him to the hospital, he discussed final corrections with me. Generally
he was happy to accept my suggestions on the sequence of the poems, but on this
occasion it was important to him that the following poem should be at the end:
Instruction More,
or less, my dear boy, All words of man are in the end swindle, Seen
relatively, we are most honest In our nappies and. later, in the grave. Then
we lie down with our fathers, Are wise at last and thoroughly cool and clear.
With bare bones we rattle out the truth, And one or the other would
rather be living and lying again. This
ambivalence of death was something he experienced plainly during his last days.
On the one side the rapid failing of his body, which he accepted stoically:
hearing that he would receive a blood transfusion, he answered: not from a hit
singer, please. On the other side his mental vitality still hung onto life:
between the doctors' examinations, he used the time to set Christmas carols
for two melody instruments and just shortly before the end he gave last instructions
regarding a page of sketches for a Violoncello solo. Some
of his works will probably still be being played when we who knew him are no longer
here. This is for us a beautiful vision. As
thanks for the honour and friendship which my father and his work were always
received in this institute in particular, we would like to bequeath to the Music
College Library his complete printed works (which amount to nothing less than
185 volumes.), and our wish is that in the future it will continue to happen that
one person or another will take the opportunity to seek to understand the musical
universe of his life's work. The
last book my father was reading was "The Discourses of Seneca". There he
had underlined the following passage: Look
closely at all the days of your life - and you will see how few are left to be
called your own ... But whosoever lives rightly, uses each moment and structures
each day as if it were his last, he lives in an eternal Now. There are enough
teachers for art and science, but living has to be learned continually on one's
own throughout this existence, until one has mastered it. So many press and
storm forward and suffer under longing for the future, suffer under discontent
with the present. Your are busy, your life rushes onward; in the meantime, death
will appear to you, for whom, whether you will or not, you have to take time...
The greatest hindrance to happy living is the expectation which depends on
tomorrow. You lose this present day; you attempt to organise that which is
in the hands of fate; that which is in your hands you neglect. How wrongly you
think! I thank you
for your attention. |