Heinz Lohmann

1934 – 2001

Heinz Lohmann's curriculum vitae reflects a considerably artistic life. Born 1934 in Gevelsberg, he studied organ with Prof. Dr. Michael Schneider at the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie (North-west-german Academy of Music) in Detmold. In 1958, after he had passed his A-exam, he accepted his first job in Wolfsburg. There he met his wife, who stood by his side for many years as his registrar and most important associate.

Between 1960 and 1961 he took private lessons at Gaston Litaize in Paris. Back to Germany, Lohmann worked as director of the church choir at Christ Church in Düsseldorf. In the same year, he relocated to the "Kirche Zum Heilsbronnen" in Berlin with the famous Schuke organ, where he stayed until his retirement in 1998. In many years he continued the tradition of this church as the cultural centre of the Berlin music scene. Heinz Lohmann's artistic foci were regular concerts with work cycles, e.g. by Rheinberger, Bach and Reger. One has to remember the 70 Berlin Bachstunden (Bach hours) regularly taking place between 1980 and 1985. They covered the whole soloistic chamber music and the most important compositions for organ and harpsichord. In 1981, he first performed "Die Kunst der Fuge" (The Art of Fugue) completely on harpsichord in Berlin.

Due to his interpretation skills on the organ, and occasionally on the harpsichord he was invited to organ concerts in nearly all European countries, America, Eastern Europe and Israel. During these concert tours he often gave lectures. Apart from these manifold concert activities, numerous radio and gramophone recordings were made. These out of print recordings are now partly reissued on CD.

Not only his organ performances were remarkable. Apart from musicological studies he edited source-critical new editions of organ works by Bach, Walther and Zachow as well as violin concertos by Haydn. Furthermore, he wrote the "Handbuch der Orgelliteratur" (Handbook of Organ Literature) and numerous scholarly articles in internal and external magazines. From 1982 on, he intensively turned to compositional activities. Several German publishing houses printed his works.

Over the last years Heinz Lohmann attended to the publication of his recordings as he had to give up playing actively due to health problems. The CD "Heinz Lohmann plays Rheinberger" is the last project he worked on. The completion and publication, however, is after his death.