Kolja Lessing

Kolja Lessing (born 15 October 1961) is a German violinist, pianist, composer and academic teacher.

Life

Lessing was born in Karlsruhe. He received his basic music education from his mother. From 1978, he attended the violin master class of Hansheinz Schneeberger in Basel. There, he studied piano with Peter Efler from 1979. He passed his concert examinations in 1982 and 1983. He also received formative impulses through his collaboration with Berthold Goldschmidt, Ignace Strasfogel and Zoltán Székely. As a professor of violin, he taught at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg from 1989 to 1993, at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig from 1993 and followed a call to the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart in 2000. From 1998 to 2015, he was a regular guest lecturer at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Since 2011, he has been working with the Israeli writer Elazar Benyoëtz.

Lessing performs worldwide as a violinist and pianist, and also gives musicological lectures and conducts master classes at European and Canadian universities.

Lessing dedicates himself to a stylistically wide-ranging repertoire, in particular to the work of artists persecuted during the National Socialist era, including Franz Schreker and his circle of students. Stylistically different compositions for solo violin by Haim Alexander, Tzvi Avni, Abel Ehrlich, Jacqueline Fontyn, Berthold Goldschmidt, premiere performed by Lessing as dedicatee, David Paul Graham, Ursula Mamlok, Krzysztof Meyer, Klaus Hinrich Stahmer, Hans Vogt and others pay tribute to his playing style. Likewise, numerous violin and piano concertos were premiered by Lessing, such as the piano concertos Rivages solitaires by Jacqueline Fontyn, Suite by Rudolf Hindemith and A Child's Day by Ignace Strasfogel, the violin concertos by Haim Alexander, Sidney Corbett (Yael), Abel Ehrlich, Stefan Hippe, Zoltán Székely (Allegro), Dimitri Terzakis (A une Madone) and Grete von Zieritz ("Le Violon de la Mort").

Recordings

Lessing recorded extensively both with violin and piano, including numerous first and complete recordings:

• Johann Paul von Westhoff: Complete Suites for Solo Violin (Capriccio)
• Georg Philipp Telemann: 12 Fantasias for Solo Violin (Capriccio)
• Ernst von Gemmingen: Complete Violin Concertos (cpo)
• Carl Czerny: The Art of Prelude, Op. 300 (cpo)
• Max Reger: Complete Works for Violin and Orchestra (telos music)
• Reger: Complete Works for Clarinet and Piano (Oehms)
• Berthold Goldschmidt: Complete Piano Works (various labels)
• Vladimir Rudolfovich Vogel: Complete Piano Works (Gramola)
• Ignace Strasfogel: Complete Piano Works (Decca)
• Ursula Mamlok: Violin Sonatas and Aphorisms I (Bridge Records)
• Franz Reizenstein: Solo Sonatas for Piano, Viola and for Violin (eda records)
• Franz Schreker's Master Classes in Vienna and Berlin, Vol. 1-4, with works by Felix Petyrek, Karol Rathaus, Jerzy Fitelberg, Grete von Zieritz, Wilhelm Grosz, Berthold Goldschmidt, Zdenka Ticharich, Vladas Jakubėnas, Kurt Fiebig, Alexander Ecklebe, Hugo Herrmann, Leon Klepper and Isco Thaler (eda records)

Compositions

• Sonata for clarinet solo 1978
• The Disquieting Muses (after Giorgio de Chirico) for violin solo 1978/79
• Metaphysical Muse in a Street Illuminated by the Evening Sun for violin solo 1979
• Two duos for clarinet and violin: The Journey into the Unknown 1979, The Beauty of a Dream 1980
• Frozen Time for two clarinets and violin 1980
• Meditation for violin solo 1982
• Gliding Figures for flute and viola 1998
• Sinking Mists for flute and alto flute 1998
• Ravelesken for two violins 2006/07

Lessing wrote cadenzas to Mozart's violin concertos K. 218 and K. 219, and to all violin concertos by Ernst von Gemmingen.

Contributions

• Tzvi Avni: Pas de deux (violin and piano) for violin and string orchestra.
• Claude Debussy: La sérénade interrompue (Préludes I) for violin and guitar.

Awards

• Prize of the Musikkredit Basel for the composition Die Schönheit eines Traumes (1980)
• 1992 Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik
• 1999 Johann-Wenzel-Stamitz-Preis, special prize for his commitment to ostracised composers
• 2008 Deutscher Kritikerpreis
• 2008 Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik
• 2015 Otto Hirsch Award of Stuttgart
• 2020 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2020 Deutscher Musikeditionspreis

Further reading

• Alain Pâris: Klassische Musik im 20. Jahrhundert. 2nd edition. DTV, Munich 1997.
• Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich: Unser Musikjahrhundert. Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 1999.
• Christoph Kammertöns, Siegfried Mauser (ed.): Lexikon des Klaviers. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2006.
• Ingo Harden, Gregor Willmes: Pianisten Profile. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2008.
• Ulrike Kienzle: Die Robert-Schumann-Gesellschaft Frankfurt (1956–2016). Verlag Frankfurter Bürgerstiftung, Frankfurt, 2016.

External links

• Literature by and about Kolja Lessing in the German National Library catalogue
• Official website
• Kolja Lessing discography at Discogs
• Prof. Kolja Lessing / Fach: Violine Musikhochschule Stuttgart