Walter Steffens (composer)
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Walter Steffens | |
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 Walter Steffens in 2005 | |
| Born | 31 October 1934 Aachen-Burtscheid, Germany |
| Education | Dortmund Conservatory |
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| Awards | |
Walter Steffens (born 31 October 1934) is a German composer. He is noted for the diversity of his creative works, but has specialised in opera, such as Eli, as well as music inspired by paintings.
The son of a bridge construction engineer, Steffens was born in Aachen-Burtscheid and grew up in Dortmund. His road to music was a bumpy one, especially since his father could not imagine a career in the fine arts as being a respectable way to earn a living. During the Second World War the Ruhrgebiet was being increasingly bombed, and at the age of eight, young Walter was sent, within the Kinderlandverschickung programme — the evacuation of children from war zones to the countryside — to the village of Wollenberg in Baden-Württemberg, and was thus separated from his parents and sister. By the end of the war, the 10-year-old had found a home with his grandparents in Bad Pyrmont.
When the family was re-united again and the family's piano, which had been stored safely in the Sauerland during the war, was returned to their home, the young boy was allowed to accompany his father while singing. Walter was given his first music lessons by a woman from the neighborhood. He received his basic musical education from the music director Max Spindler in Dortmund, and this was supplemented by conducting lessons with Rolf Agop, at the Dortmund Conservatory. In Hamburg he studied composition under Ernst-Gernot Klussmann and the Busoni-pupil Philipp Jarnach as well as music theory under Wilhelm Maler. "I was only able to convince my father about my plans for a musical career after I had finished my school leaving examinations in Münster and passed the entrance examinations for the Hamburg University of Music in 1959", Steffens recalls. He began his teaching career in 1962 at the Hamburg Conservatory.
Eli, Op. 7, after the mystery play by Nelly Sachs, which premiered under the direction of Wilhelm Schüchter in 1967, was commissioned by the City of Dortmund on the occasion of the opening of its new opera house. Under Milk Wood, Op. 14 (Unter dem Milchwald, 1972), based on the "play for voices" by Dylan Thomas, premiered at the Hamburg State Opera in 1973 and staged again by Staatstheater Kassel in 1977 on the occasion of the opening of the documenta 7. His other operas include Der Philosoph, Op. 57 (The Philosopher, Landestheater Detmold 1990), Die Judenbuche, Op. 65 (The Jew's Beech, Opernhaus Dortmund 1992), based on a novel by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, and Two Cells in Sevilla, Op. 106 on a libretto by his son Marec Béla Steffens (Greenbriar Consortium Houston and Round Top Theatre Forum 2016, on CD: Navona Records 2018).
Steffens has composed numerous works based on paintings (more than 100 single paintings), e.g., Vier Aquarelle nach Paul Klee, Op. 63 (Four Watercolors after Paul Klee). "Mixed concordant working process" (Steffens) is based on the composer's own eight-note scale, with scale-related sound patterns. Impressions of his childhood during the war years and his sadness and grief at all the death and destruction were dealt with by Steffens in his composition Guernica, Op. 32, after the painting by Pablo Picasso. He has received awards from Hamburg, Berlin, and Paris (Cité des Arts).
