Heinrich Rehkemper was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

 singer whose repertoire was in opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 and Lieder, and whose career was principally in Germany between the First and Second World War. The greater part of his career was spent as leading baritone at the Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 opera house.

Rehkemper studied at Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, and made his debut in opera in Die Faschingsfee

Die Faschingsfee

Zsuzsi kisasszony is an operetta in 3 acts by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán. It premiered at the Vig theatre in Budapest on February 23, 1915. The Hungarian language libretto was by Martos and M. Bródy. As Miss Springtime, it opened on Broadway in 1916.With a German libretto by A. M....

by Emerich Kálmán in 1919, at Coburg

Coburg

Coburg is a town located on the Itz River in Bavaria, Germany. Its 2005 population was 42,015. Long one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined with Bavaria by popular vote in 1920...

. Over the next two years he also sang there in Nicolai

Nicolai

Nicolai may refer to:*Nicolai people with the forename Nicolai*Nicolai people with the surname Nicolai*Nicolai , a crater on the Moon-See also:* Nicolay * Nikolai* Nikolay...

's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, in Lohengrin

Lohengrin (opera)

Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...

, Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

and Cavalleria rusticana

Cavalleria rusticana

Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...

. From 1921 to 1924 he was engaged at the Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 opera, and during the first three years of this time he sang over forty different lead roles. At the end of three years he broke his contract, and was therefore legally forbidden to make stage appearances for the final year. In that time he began to develop his concert repertoire and persona. He gave recitals of songs by Schubert, Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, Wolf and Mahler: he also took the baritone solo role in a performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, and in J. S. Bach's St. John Passion

St. John Passion

Several composers have written works known by the title St John Passion, which denotes a passion based on the Gospel of John...

in a performance at Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

.

In 1925, he returned to the operatic stage, joining the Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 opera house company, where Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss....

 was taking over direction from Bruno Walter

Bruno Walter

Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...

. The leading baritone Friedrich Brodersen

Friedrich Brodersen

Friedrich Brodersen was a German operatic baritone. Born in Bad Boll, he studied singing with Heinrich Bertram. He made his professional opera debut in 1900...

 found a successor in Rehkemper, who remained at Munich for the next eighteen years. His operatic repertoire was extensive. He played Mozart's Papageno, both the Conte and Figaro, Guglielmo

Così fan tutte

Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....

 and Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

; Wagner's Amfortas

Parsifal

Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...

, Beckmesser and Donner

Das Rheingold

is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...

; Verdi's Macbeth

Macbeth (opera)

Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...

, Posa

Don Carlos

Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...

 and Don Carlo

La forza del destino

La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...

; Puccini's Marcello

La bohème

La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...

 and Michele

Il tabarro

Il tabarro is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on Didier Gold's play La houppelande. It is the first of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...

; and Malatesta in Don Pasquale

Don Pasquale

Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....

. In the German repertoire he had roles in Pfitzner

Pfitzner

Pfitzner may refer to:In people* Composer Hans Pfitzner* Nazi politician and historian Josef PfitznerIn other uses* Pfitzner-Moffatt oxidation, a chemical reaction* G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium, located in Prince William County, Virginia, USA...

's Palestrina

Palestrina (opera)

Palestrina is an opera by the German composer Hans Pfitzner, first performed in 1917. The composer referred to it as a Musikalische Legende , and wrote the libretto himself, based on a legend about the Renaissance musician Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who saves the art of contrapuntal music ...

 and Das Herz; Schultze's Schwarzer Peter; Eugen d'Albert

Eugen d'Albert

Eugen Francis Charles d'Albert was a Scottish-born German pianist and composer.Educated in Britain, d'Albert showed early musical talent and, at the age of seventeen, he won a scholarship to study in Austria...

's Tiefland

Tiefland

Tiefland may refer to:* Tiefland a 1903 opera by Eugen d'Albert* Tiefland , a 1954 film by Leni Riefenstahl...

, Goetze's Widerspenstigen Zähmung, Jokanaan in Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

's Salome

Salome (opera)

Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....

, and others. He seldom sang outside Germany, but he made guest appearances at other centres such as Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Bremen

Bremen

The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...

, Darmstadt

Darmstadt

Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

 and Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

. After the Munich opera house was bombed in a 1943 air-raid, his connection with it came to an end.

Rehkemper also had a wide repertoire of Lieder, notably songs by Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, Schubert, Hugo Wolf

Hugo Wolf

Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...

, Grieg, Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

 and the Austrian

Austrians

Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....

 composer Siegmund von Hausegger

Siegmund von Hausegger

Siegmund von Hausegger was an Austrian composer and conductor.-Early life:Siegmund was born in Graz, the son of Friedrich von Hausegger , a lawyer and writer on music...

. In 1931 he gave a recital of Strauss Lieder at Munich with the composer as pianist. He performed song-cycles, notably Winterreise

Winterreise

Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...

, von Hausegger's Hymns to the Night, and Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen is Gustav Mahler's first song cycle. While he had previously written other lieder, they were grouped by source of text or time of composition as opposed to common theme...

and Kindertotenlieder

Kindertotenlieder

Kindertotenlieder is a song cycle for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler...

, the latter being preserved in an effective recording.

Recordings

Rehkemper made many recordings. Three compilations are available on CD published by Preiser Records in the Lebendige Vergangenheit series.

Sources

• A. Eaglefield-Hull, A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London 1924).
• R. D. Darrell, The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music (New York, 1936).
• M. Scott, The Record of Singing
  The Record of Singing
  The Record of Singing is a compilation of classical-music singing from the first half of the 20th century, the era of the 78-rpm record.It was issued on LP by EMI, successor to the British company His Master's Voice — perhaps the leading organization in the early history of audio recording.The...
  
  Volume II (Duckworth, London 1979), 223-225.