Siegfried Reda (27 July 1916 – 13 December 1968) was a German composer and

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''rank ...

player.

Life

Born in Bochum, Reda studied with

Ernst Pepping Ernst Pepping (12 September 1901 – 1 February 1981) was a German composer of classical music and academic teacher. He is regarded as an important composer of Protestant sacred music in the 20th century. Pepping taught at the and the . His musi ...

and

Hugo Distler August Hugo Distler (24 June 1908 – 1 November 1942)Slonimsky & Kuhn, ''Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'', v. 2, p. 889 was a German organist, choral conductor, teacher and composer. Life and career Born in Nuremberg, Distler at ...

at the

Spandauer Kirchenmusikschule The (Spandau school of church music) was a music academy in Spandau, Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1929, it was housed in the in Spandau and was closed in 1998. The schools choir appeared and recorded as the Spandauer Kantorei. It was located in t ...

and was an organist in Bochum,

Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it li ...

and Berlin. In 1946 he became director of the Institute for Protestant Church Music at the

Folkwang University of the Arts The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former Werden Abbey in E ...

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and ...

, and also served as a professor of organ and composition. In 1953 he became church music director at the St.-Petri-Kirche in Mülheim an der Ruhr. His students included ,

Magdalene Schauss-Flake Magdalene Schauss-Flake (25 July 1921 – 24 September 2008) was a German composer and organist who gave recitals throughout the United States and Europe. Biography Schauss-Flake was born in Essen, where she studied church music at the Folkwang S ...

Gisbert Schneider Gisbert Schneider (14 January 1934 – 1 December 2018) was a German professor for artistic organ playing and improvisation at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen as well as Kirchenmusikdirektor. Life Born in Wattenscheid, Schneider grew up in Weim ...

and . Reda died in

Mülheim an der Ruhr Mülheim, officially Mülheim an der Ruhr () and also described as ''"City on the River"'', is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is located in the Ruhr Area between Duisburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Ratingen. It is home to many comp ...

. at the age of 52. In 1996, a

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

in Mülheim an der Ruhr was named after him.

Selected works

Reda is regarded as one of the most active forces in the renewal of Protestant

church music Church music is Christian music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. History Early Christian music The on ...

after the Second World War. Accordingly, he mainly wrote music with

liturgical Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...

references, including three ''Choral concertos'' for organ (1946-1952), ''Psalmbuch'' for solos and choir '' a cappella'' (1948-1949), ''Die Weihnachtsgeschichte'' for

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors i ...

solo, speaker and 5-part choir (1949), ''Ecce homo'' for 4 voices choir (1950), ''Easter story'' for solos and choir ''a cappella'' (1951), ''Marienbilder'' for organ (1955), ''Orgelsonate'' (1960), and ''Requiem vel vivorum consolatio'' for solos, choir and orchestra (1963).

Bibliography

* Siegfried Bergemann: ''Chormusik für das Jahr der Kirche''. In ', 83. Jg. 2016, booklet 1, *

Volker Bräutigam Volker Bräutigam (23 May 1939 – 31 May 2022Obituary
Reformed Church Leipzig. Retrieved 5 June 2 ...

: ''In der Tradition zum Aufbruch. Siegfried Reda (1916–1968)''. In Ulrich von Brück (editor): ''Credo musicale. Komponistenporträts aus der Arbeit des Dresdner Kreuzchores''. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1969, * Rudolf Faber, Philip Hartmann (editor): ''Handbuch Orgelmusik''.''Handbuch Orgelmusik''
/ref> Bärenreiter/Metzler, Stuttgart und Weimar, 2002. . * Elisabeth Reda: ''Die Kirchenmusik als Ort der Erinnerung. Siegfried Reda zum 100. Geburtstag''. In: ''Forum Kirchenmusik'', 67. Jg. 2016, booklet 6, (the author is a granddaughter of the composer)

References

External links

''Ein Mensch ist in seinem Leben wie Gras''
on Musicanet
''Die Verkündigung der Geburt unseres Heilandes nach Worten MArtin Luthers "Kinderlied auf die Weihnacht Schristi" für Singstimme und Instrumente''
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Reda, Siegfried 1916 births 1968 deaths People from Bochum 20th-century classical composers 20th-century German composers German classical organists Kirchenmusikdirektor