Joachim Kaiser


Joachim Kaiser was a German music, literature and theatre critic. Since 1959 he worked as a senior editor in the feuilleton of the Süddeutsche Zeitung; from 1977 to 1996 he was professor for history of music at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.

Life

Borrn in Miłki,, Kaiser was born in 1928 as the son of a country doctor. At the age of eight he began to play the piano. Playing music together with his family was one of the happiest moments in his life. Literature and music began to interest him at an early age. After the flight and expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe 1945-1950, he attended the Wilhelm-Gymnasium. He then studied musicology, German studies, philosophy and sociology at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main and the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen. Among his fellow students were the musicologists Carl Dahlhaus and Rudolf Stephan.
In June 1951 Kaiser began his journalistic career as a theatre, literature and music critic. His path was paved by a review of a publication by Theodor W. Adorno: Music and Catastrophe. About the "Philosophy of New Music". Adorno recommended Kaiser Alfred Andersch of the Hessischer Rundfunk, which in turn drew the attention of the Frankfurter Hefte. Mathias Döpfner described him as "the best known and most successful Adorno students ever". At the invitation of Hans Werner Richter, Kaiser was allowed to take part in events of Group 47 from 1953. In 1958 he was awarded a doctorate in German Studies at the University of Tübingen on the subject of Franz Grillparzer's dramatic style. On the initiative of the then SZ journalist Erich Kuby, Kaiser was able to work in the cultural editorial department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from 1959. He was a member of the writers' association PEN-Zentrum Deutschland.
Kaiser, along with Marcel Reich-Ranicki, was one of the most influential critics of Germany. His book Große Pianisten in unserer Zeit is occasionally referred to as the "Piano Michelin". Besides groundbreaking pianists such as Artur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Sviatoslav Richter and Friedrich Gulda he introduced young interpreters and explained developments in the art of piano playing.
Kaiser felt a special connection to the work of Richard Wagner and supported and accompanied the new beginning of the Bayreuth Festival in 1951 under the direction of Wagner's grandchildren, Wieland and Wolfgang.
Kaiser was married to the translator and novelist Susanne Kaiser since December 1958, with whom he had two children: the director Henriette Kaiser and the sports editor Philipp Kaiser. His domicile was in Munich on the edge of the Englischer Garten.
In 2009 he handed over his extensive private archive to the as a Nachlass. Besides letters from Theodor W. Adorno and Alfred Andersch, it contains correspondence with Ingeborg Bachmann, Ernst Bloch and Heinrich Böll. From May 2009 onwards, Kaiser answered readers' questions weekly in his video column Kaiser's Classic Customer on the website of SZ-Magazin. Due to an illness he had to give this up in January 2011. The series has not been continued since.
Kaiser died in Munich at the age of 88.

Work

Catalogue of works
Kaiser's many years of lecturing activity at the Gasteig in Munich include his extensive series of lectures on specific artists and art forms, especially on the subject of music:
From 11 October 1994 to 17 July 2007 Kaiser gave 206 lectures, a total of 322. With 170,000 listeners, Kaiser's lectures are the most successful event to date of the.

Radio series

In weekly radio broadcasts, he dealt with Chopin for half a year and with "Beethoven - Werk und Wirkung" for a whole year. In addition to this, there were regular word broadcasts, such as "Kaiser's Magazine Show".

Films