Walter Dost (26.05.1874 - 15.07.1947) Educator and composer.
The Dost family was a well-known Schneeberg family of teachers and composers from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century. The most famous composer of this family was Walter Dost.
He was born in Schneeberg on 26 May 1874, the first child of Bruno Dost and his wife Camilla, née Grünberg. This was followed in 1875 by the birth of his sister Magdalena Ella, who later married Prof. Thierfelder in Schneeberg, and in 1877 brother Walter Dost Rudolf was born. The parents are 1873
came to Schneeberg.
Bruno Dost was a respected and well-known Schneeberg personality. Like most representatives of the local educated middle classes, he was a freemason and served in the lodge as a music master.
Walter Dost wrote in 1919 in memory of his father that musical talent had been an inheritance in the Dost family from time immemorial. Walter Dost and his brothers and sisters were also influenced by the musical education at home.
From 1880 to 1884 he attended the seminar practice school at the Royal Schneeberg Teacher Training College. Such training schools at the Saxon Teachers' Seminars were intended to promote particularly gifted children. From 1884 - 1887 Walter Dost was a Thomaner. He then attended the Schneeberg grammar school and passed the school-leaving examination there in 1893. The following year Walter Dost was an intern at the Schneeberg teacher training seminar and at Easter 1894 he obtained a certificate of maturity in the pedagogical subjects and in music.
On April 21, 1894 he enrolled to study theology at the University of Leipzig. In addition to his theological studies, he was also interested in lectures on mathematics, the German constitution, national economics and the history of law. This school career shows that Walter Dost did not want to aspire to a spiritual office, but saw his vocation as a teacher.
He left the University of Leipzig on 8 March 1898. This was followed by a vicar's term at the Städtische Bürgerschule in Döbeln. On 1 July 1898 he was appointed vicar (religion teacher) at the Städtische Realschule with Realgymnasium classes in Plauen/Vogtland. At Easter 1899 the Cand. theol. Dost advanced to a non-permanent scientific teacher.
Until 1934 the Städtisches Realgymnasium Plauen with Realschule and commercial upper class, as the school was called from 1900, was the place of activity of Walter Dost. His duties at the school included religious and music lessons. Through the diligence and enthusiasm of the then still Cand. rev. min. Dost, a great joy of music grew among the students.
In 1900, a secondary school music association for musically gifted pupils was founded at the school. This association organized the various school celebrations. With the transfer of the entire music lessons to Walter Dost in 1909, the high musical level in the school was further enhanced.
In 1901 he was promoted to permanent scientific teacher, in 1904 to senior teacher, in 1914 to professor and in 1919 to senior student councilor. Soon Walter Dost became one of the well-known personalities of Plauen's musical life.
In 1908 he became the lieder master of the male choral society "Ressource", the later Plauen Male Choir.
Together with the mixed philharmonic choir he founded, large oratorios are performed under his direction in Plauen. The promotion of choral singing in the Vogtland region and in Germany is a special merit of Walter Dost.
From 1913 to 1925 he held the office of choir master in the Vogt ländischer Sängerbund in annual rotation. In 1923 he was appointed to the board of the German Singers' Association, from 1926 to 1930 he worked on the main committee and was chairman of the music committee. In this position he was personally awarded the Golden Medal for Art and Science by the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg in 1926.
In addition to his school and social obligations, many of his own secular and sacred compositions appear. The catalogue of works comprises 100 titles, plus arrangements of works by other composers. On April 23, 1903, the premiere of "Ullranda" Op. 12, a musical drama based on Carmen Sylva, takes place in Plauen's municipal theatre. In collaboration with the pharmacist Carl August Klingner (1858-1923), who worked in Bad Elster, Walter Dost composed the music for the festival play "Hermann and Dorothea" Op. 30. The premiere took place on 9 July 1911 in the presence of King Friedrich August III. Walter Dost writes the music for Hans Heise's Singspiel "Grün Geniffte" (Green Dumplings) Op. 16. In the "Kloßwalzer" the production of Vogtland dumplings is musically described.
A work of Walter Dost, could have been a gift to his native Schneeberg and its surroundings. It bears the curious name "Late Summer Happiness Dream", Op. 74, and was the first Ore Mountain opera to be reviewed by the press at the time. The plot contains a romantic fairy tale with the mountain lake Filzteich as its centrepiece. The first performance is in 1933 in Plauen (?). On August 13, 1933, a Sunday, the second performance takes place in the Gasthof "Erzhof" of the former Radiumbad Oberschlema. This performance is cast with professional and amateur singers. Tenor Peter Lambertz from the Plauen Municipal Theatre, the Schneeberg singer Anni Hassay-Colditz and Margarethe Beuthner are among the singers. The choir of St. Wolfgang in Schneeberg will be there, as well as the chamber orchestra of the Stadtkapelle Aue. Schneeberg's cantor Felix Junghans will play the piano.
A deep cut in the work of Walter Dost is the First World War. Walter Dost has never actually dealt with important problems of the time in his works. The "Requiem" (Op. 40) based on a text by Friedrich Hebbel, which he dedicated to the fallen in 1915, may be an exception. Together with other musicians he went on two concert tours to the Western Front, for which he was awarded the Saxon War Merit Cross in 1916. Like many other insecure Germans at that time, he felt the same: the end of the Empire and now a life in a bourgeois republic is hard for him to grasp.
He expresses his own insecurity and his search for new values in the "Neue Vogtländische Zeitung" of 11 September 1920. Walter Dost writes of a "completely changed world view", and he would like to "experience the course of the coming artistic development from afar as an uninvolved party as possible". As a music critic of this newspaper, he resigns after twenty years of activity.
In addition to his teaching at the Realgymnasium and his own composing, Walter Dost devotes himself increasingly to his committee work in the German Sängerbund. In 1928 the Sängerbund had 1,454,184 active and passive members, most of whom came from the middle class and the educated middle classes. Highlights of the federal life, were always the Sängerbund festivals.
The 10th German Sängerbundesfest took place in Vienna from 19 to 22 July 1928 - in a politically very turbulent time. The German Sängerbund, whose roots go back to the first half of the 19th century, was always surrounded by a German-national charisma.
One of the musical highlights is the performance of the work "Der Rhein" Op. 54 by Walter Dost. The piece is based on a poem by V. Renata for male choir and large orchestra. This performance takes place under the direction of the composer. There are said to have been 20,000 singers. During the Sängerbund festival the general committee of the Sängerbund and the main committee are newly elected. Walter Dost becomes a member of both committees. He relinquishes his office as chairman of the music committee in April 1930. In 1934, at the age of sixty, Dost retires as senior student councilor.
With his wife Gertrud, a born Irmisch, he moves to Lenggries/Upper Bavaria in 1934. Three children are born in the marriage. Since 1916, the family has travelled to this place again and again in the summer holidays. In 1925 the couple donated a silk standard to the men's choral society "Liederkranz Lenggries 1901" e.V. Walter Dost became the first honorary member of the association in 1926.
During his time in Lenggries he composed nine symphonies and the concert waltz "Bergfrühling im Isarwinkel" Op. 86, among others. He came to Plauen once again. In November 1942 Walter Dost conducts his "Eichendorf-Sinfonie" Op. 88 and the seventh symphony in d- minor Op.96 in the foyer of Plauen's town hall.
His farewell from the Erzgebirge takes place in Zwickau in April 1944 with the Eighth Symphony Op. 98. On July 15, 1947 Walter Dost dies in Lenggries, where he is also buried. To evaluate the artist today is only possible when his works are performed again.
Source:
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