Siegfried Strohbach

Siegfried Strohbach (27 November 1929 – 11 July 2019) was a German composer and conductor. He founded and directed choirs and the vocal ensemble Collegium Cantorum and is notable for the composition of choral music. He was a conductor of major theaters of Lower Saxony and a professor of the Musikhochschule Hannover as well as a composer.

Biography Siegfried Strohbach began having piano lessons at the age of five. From 1939 to 1945, he was a student of the Musisches Gymnasium (high school with music as a main course) in Frankfurt with a major in piano. He studied composition with its founder and director Kurt Thomas. From 1946 to 1949 he continued his studies in composition and conducting with Thomas privately, and studied the piano with August Leopolder.

From 1947 to 1949 he worked as a Korrepetitor (coach) at the Oper Frankfurt. songs, stage music, even Spanish folk music, among others. Missa beatae Virginis, (Mass of the Blessed Virgin) for soprano solo, female choir and organ 6 Evangelien-Motetten (6 Gospel motets) for mixed choir a cappella Max & Moritz, cantata on Wilhelm Busch's Max and Moritz for mixed choir and piano 5 Trinklieder (5 drinking songs) after old texts, for baritone solo, male choir and piano

Performances and recordings

Strohbach's music has been performed by notable ensembles. The ensemble amarcord performed his Galgenlieder on the poems of Christian Morgenstern in Leipzig in 1996. They included the songs in 2001 in both their concert at the festival "a cappella" in Leipzig and their first CD insalata a cappella. The Windsbacher Knabenchor recorded his Gospel motet Jesus, der Retter im Seesturm (Jesus, the saviour in the storm on the lake, 1957), which appears on a portrait of boys' choirs in an anthology Musik in Deutschland 1950–2000 of the Deutscher Musikrat. In 2006 the choir recorded his Gospel motet Jesus heilt einen Gelähmten on a CD to celebrate 60 years. His cantata for Epiphany Der Stern aus Jakob (2005), performed by the Knabenchor Hannover conducted by Jörg Breiding, appears on a collection Glaubenslieder / Neue Kantaten zum Kirchenjahr (Songs of Faith / New cantatas for the liturgical year), together with cantatas of Gordon Kampe, Alfred Koerppen and others. It is characterized: "For example, Strohbach is the only one to explicitly integrate an “aria” into his composition. His cantata for Epiphany features a large-scale baritone solo as its third movement which is accompanied by the oboe in imitation. While, in this instance, Strohbach deliberately adheres to traditional forms of composition, the narrative sections of his work are dealt with freely: He renders them through recitation as well as through a finely coloured, grand a cappella motet."

In 2010 the Mädchenchor am Kölner Dom (girls' choir at the Cologne Cathedral) celebrated their 21st anniversary with a service Kapitelsamt in the cathedral, singing his Missa Beatae Mariae Virginis. Strohbach composed a program for the annual Advent concerts of the Knabenchor Hannover in 2011 in the Marktkirche, Freuen sollen sich die Himmel (The heavens shall rejoice).