Ottmar Gerster

Ottmar Gerster
Ottmar Gerster (1952)
Born	29 June 1897 Braunfels, Hesse, Germany
Died	31 August 1969 Borsdorf (Leipzig), Saxony, GDR (East Germany)
Nationality	German
Occupation	Viola player Conductor Composer
Political party	SED

Ottmar Gerster (born Braunfels 29 June 1897: died Borsdorf 31 August 1969) was a German viola player, conductor and composer who in 1948 became rector of the Liszt Music Academy in Weimar.

Ottmar Gerster was born some 50 km (30 miles) north of Frankfurt during the closing years of the nineteenth century. His father was a neurologist and his mother was a pianist. He attended an Academic secondary school ("Gymnsium") and entered, in 1913, the Dr Hoch Music Conservatory where his teachers included Bernhard Sekles (improvisation) and Adolf Rebner (violin). It was at the Hoch Conservatory that Gerster also got to know Paul Hindemith who was a near contemporary.

Between 1916 and 1918 his music education was interrupted when he was called up for military service, but he concluded his formal studies successfully in 1920. From 1921 he was working with the Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra, initially as the Concertmaster ("leader") and the between 1923 and 1927 as a solo viola player. During the 1920s Gerster also joined up with the labour movement and organised Workers' Choral Groups. In addition, from 1927 till 1947 he taught at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, specialising in violin, viola, chamber music, music theory and composition.

In January 1933 the NSDAP (Nazi Party) took power and quickly set about creating a one-party state out of Germany. During the ensuing twelve years Gerster's relationship with the Hitler regime was often collaborative, but at other times problematic. He composed a "Consecration piece" for the regime in 1933 as well as a "battle hymn" for (Nazi) German Christian organisation entitled "You should burn", setting a text by Baldur von Schirach. In 1936 there was a popular song entitled "The stranger bride" and a choral song "German airmen". In 1939, briefly, he was required to undertake "army service" as a "Road construction soldier". In 1940 he composed a song for which he had himself written the words and which was entitled "Song of the Essen Road building corps".