The composer Giselher Klebe was born in Mannheim on 28 June 1925. His 100th anniversary offers an opportunity to re-examine his extensive output.

“Here, has a border not become visible which suggests saying that art doesn’t only come from ability or necessity, but especially from taking responsibility?”  (Giselher Klebe, 1981) 

Born on 28 June 1925, the composer Giselher Klebe came from a generation of creative artists whose youth was defined by the Nazi period and the Second World War, like others such as Hans Werner Henze or Karlheinz Stockhausen. His formative experiences included not only war service and a short period in Russian captivity in 1945, but also the specific experience of the violence of the Nazi regime: experiences such as the persecution of the Communist painter Fritz Ohse, whom the young Klebe’s piano teacher hid in an attic room. This laid the foundation for a humanist and pacifist lifestyle which found expression in his programmatic instrumental works as well as the choice of subjects of his rich operatic output.

Alongside early musical encouragement from his mother the violinist Gertrud Klebe, during the Second World War he succeeded in gaining access to then-forbidden art: abstract paintings by Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and others which he got to know in reproductions thanks to Ohse. As he said, these “opened a new world” for him (Klebe, 1982). He drew important influences for his compositional output from the “entartete” [degenerate] outlawed scores of Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schönberg, Paul Hindemith and Igor Strawinsky, which he encountered through the personal recommendation of his music history professors Hans Böttcher and Hermann Halbig during his first music studies from 1941 to 1943 (in violin, viola, composition) at the Städtisches Konservatorium Berlin.After the end of the war he continued his composition studies in Berlin with Schönberg’s pupil Josef Rufer and studied privately with Boris Blacher, from whom he adopted in particular the technique of variable metres. A further mentor of Klebe’s was Wolfgang Fortner, whom he succeeded in 1957, initially as a lecturer in composition and music theory at what was then the North-west German Music Academy in Detmold, before being appointed a full professor in 1962. In 1955 Klebe also worked in the Studio for Electronic Music of Cologne Radio; the influences he experienced there also left traces in his works, such as the tape montages in his one-act opera “Die Ermordung Caesars” (1959) and in his Harpsichord Concerto op. 64 (1971). After his retirement in 1990 Klebe remained closely associated with the Detmold Musikhochschule where he taught in his retirement as a lecturer until 1998.

As for many composers of the then young avantgarde, his step to international recognition came about through festivals and summer schools for new music: Fortner had encouraged Klebe to compose a chamber music ensemble piece for the Darmstadt Summer Course in 1949. This was followed by the world premiere in 1950 of “Die Zwitschermaschine”, a metamorphosis on the eponymous painting by Paul Klee for orchestra, in Donaueschingen. In this work Klebe set to music the 1922 miniature painting of a mechanised concert of birds, interpretable as a criticism of the 20th century’s naive belief in technology. Henze had seen Klebe’s score and given it to Heinrich Strobel, director of the Donaueschingen Festival at that time. The performance in Donaueschingen by Hans Rosbaud represented a breakthrough for Klebe. In the following years he was honoured with numerous awards and prizes, including the Berlin Art Prize in 1952, the Förderpreis of the Culture Committee of the Federation of German Industries in 1953, the Grand Art Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Rome Scholarship at the Villa Massimo in 1959 and 1962. From 1986 to 1989 Klebe was President of the Academy of Arts.

Compositionally, the 1950s pointed in new directions for the now established composer: after many commissioned works for chamber music scorings and orchestra, Klebe now worked in a new field – the stage. He experienced musical theatre as “perhaps the most essential medium in [his] musical language”. With a stage output of five ballets and 13 (literary) operas after texts by Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Balzac, Horváth, Zuckmayer and others, Klebe was one of the most famous composers of German-language opera in the postwar period.

Whilst in Berlin he had met the violinist Lore Schiller, whom he married in 1946. They had two daughters. She remained his close artistic collaborator until her death in 2001, not only as librettist for his operas. Klebe’s enthusiasm for the theatre began at an early age, initially sparked by a fascination for Wagner, Strawinsky, Tchaikovsky and Schönberg. Later, Verdi’s output played a central role for Klebe, and he often integrated quotations from his works into his own dodecaphonic compositions. For the sake of theatrical expression and in order to do justice to the artist’s “responsibility” to overcome the “trauma of progressive thinking” in New Music, he worked with a wide range of compositional techniques, for music must not “lose its ‘linguistic character’ ” (Klebe, 1982). Tonality and atonality were no longer regarded as “antitheses” by Klebe from 1957 onwards, but as “colour values in a consistent sound spectrum” (Klebe, n.d.). He integrated tonal elements, tape montages and quotations into his atonal-serial structures, and dodecaphonic structures were also employed as leitmotifs in the framework of different orchestrations. The musical material was never used for its own sake, but was always in the service of expression and communication with the audience. The traditional forms of number operas, such as arias, duets and large ensembles with high comprehensibility of text alternate in Klebe’s operas with through-composed sections; and as well as vocal roles, spoken parts are frequently used in his music theatre works. In his opera “Der jüngste Tag”, premiered in Mannheim in 1980, the theme of guilt is dealt with in a memorable way. The protagonists and situations are ultimately characterised by concise, recognisable leitmotifs no longer dodecaphonically structured. Tonality, atonality and quotations are seamlessly integrated.

At his death in 2009 Klebe left an output of over 150 musical compositions, including eight symphonies, many other orchestral works and solo concertos and an impressive number of chamber music compositions as well as significant sacred works, including a Christmas oratorio.

In 2025, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, many individual works will be performed again at the Detmold Musikhochschule, and Klebe will be commemorated in an exhibition. His fundamental political-ethical attitude of a Christian-influenced pacifism and humanism seems more relevant than ever. 

Antje Tumat
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson / from [t]akte 2/2024)

Quotations from: 

Giselher Klebe: Meine Entwicklung als Komponist. In: Beiträge zur Musikkultur in der Sowjetunion und in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Edited by Carl Dahlhaus and Giwi Ordschonikidse. Hamburg/Wilhelmshaven, 1982, pp. 249–256.

Giselher Klebe: Von der Verantwortung der Kunst heute. In: Humanität, Musik, Erziehung. Edited by Heinrich Ehrenforth. Mainz, 1981. pp. 152–158.

Giselher Klebe: Manuscript n.d. Giselher Klebe-Archiv Detmold, Mus-h 12 K.