Wolfgang Graeser (1906-28): A forgotten genius

Musical Times, Spring 2000 by Tunnicliffe, Stephen

STEPHEN TUNNICLIFFE recalls a pioneering Bach scholar whose career was cut short by a tragically early death

NOW THAT BERLIN is once again the capital of a re-united Germany, it is fitting that we should become aware of a musical genius who, during the stormy years of the Weimar Republic, spent there the most significant part of his short and tragic life. In this 250th-anniversary year of Bach's death there is another reason for remembering Wolfgang Graeser (1906-28), known to Bach scholars as the rediscoverer of Die Kunst der Fuge (The art of fugue). He was among the first to recognise it as a major, unified work of art rather than merely an academic tour-de force. In 1927 this led to its first public performance in its entirety, from Graeser's realisation, 177 years after it appeared. The performance, by players from the Leipzig Gewandhaus, took place, fittingly, in Bach's own church in Leipzig, under the direction of Karl Straube, the then holder of Bach's post of Thomaskantor. What is less well known is the many-sidedness of Graeser's genius and the conflicting influences brought to bear on it, which led to his suicide less than a year after that triumphant performance.

Wolfgang Graeser was born, of Swiss and German parents, in Zurich on 7 September 1906. His father, Dr Carl Graeser (1856-1925), studied medicine in Switzerland and Germany graduating in Wurzburg. He served in the university clinic in Bonn, then spent some years at sea as a ship's doctor. In 1893 he was appointed first medical officer at the newly founded German Hospital in Naples, where he met and married Elizabeth (Lily) Obenaus. Their first child, Hans, was born there in 1899, but was to outlive his multi-talented younger brother by many years. Wolfgang's childhood in Naples, punctuated by visits to his father's relatives in Switzerland, was a happy one. His brilliance showed itself at an early age: his father published (privately) a collection of his letters home, written during an extended stay in Zurich, when the boy was only seven years old; and he was also, at this age, already showing unusual talent, both as a musician and an artist. In 1917, when Wolfgang was eleven, the family had to leave Italy in haste, branded as enemy aliens and abandoning their home and all their possessions. They took up residence with Lily Obenaus's family in Munich, where Wolfgang attended the Theresiengymnasium (grammar school), while his brother Hans studied at Munich University, first chemistry, then transferring to music, specialising in the music of Telemann. Meanwhile, their father served as a medical officer in the German army, based at Trier.

After the war they lived through the days of revolution in Munich, which was for some time under communist control. At this impressionable age Wolfgang was exposed to the music of JS Bach. With his father he attended a performance of the St Matthew Passion and then, through his brother, became aware of The musical offering. He transcribed the entire work in order to study it more closely In June 1919 Dr Carl Graeser arranged for an exhibition of Wolfgang's pastels, aquarelles and oil paintings to be held at the Munchener Graphischen Kunstwerkstatten. It was presented as Bilder eines Knaben: Malereien and Handzeichnungen eines Zwolfjdhrigen (A boy's pictures: paintings and drawings of a twelve-yearold). The fifty-pfennig admission charge was in aid of the families of Munich children who had died in the war. The exhibition comprised 145 items: abstracts, landscapes of the Swiss mountains and of Naples and Vesuvius, studies of animals and various others. The catalogue introduction, by GJ Wolf, spoke of `an artistically talented child, uninfluenced by teaching', so that this was `art in its essence [...] the uninhibited beginnings of art itself.'

In 1921 came the opportunity for Dr Graeser to move to a medical practice in the prosperous Berlin suburb of Nikolassee, where the family took up residence at no.17 Prince Friedrich-- Leopold Strasse (where the house still stands and still houses a doctor). Once they were there, the education of their brilliant teenage son became a prime concern of Carl and Lily Graeser. Lily had studied music at Leipzig before her marriage. She wanted Wolfgang to develop his violin-playing at the famous Berlin Hochschule der Musik founded by Joachim. They succeeded in persuading the deputy principal, Professor Schunemann, to waive the age requirement for admission, and in April 1922, at the age of fifteen, Wolfgang was enrolled as a student, under the best-known vioIin tutor, Prof. Karl Klingler. Later, he transferred to an older but less high-ranking violin teacher at the Hochschule, Prof. Andreas Moser. He also studied musicology (Musikwissenschaft) there.

Dr Carl Graeser insisted, however, that he must also pass the qualifying exam for university entrance, the Matura or Abitur. He was fortunate to find a private tutor in Nikolassee, Prof. Dr Paul Muller, under whose guidance Wolfgang completed the four-year syllabus in two years. He sailed through the examination as soon as he was permitted to take it as an external student at the Mommsengymnasium in Charlottenburg, in February 1924. In the following month he left the Hochschule der Musik. This was due in part to the financial problems after 1923, the year of hyper-inflation, when many middle-class families lost all their savings and investments. Because he was Swiss, Wolfgang's fees were greater than for German nationals, a ruling that his father, as an ex-army doctor, bitterly resented and contested.