Helmut May
Helmut W. May was born on 28.05.1929 in Wiesbaden (Germany). His mother was a professionally trained soprano but she did not support his musical ambitions. Therefore Helmut May made his first steps into writing novels, and self-taught learned piano and composing not before the final year of his schooldays. A friend of the family who was a musician finally advised Helmut May to get into the music profession.
Helmut May studied violin with Richard Lerch and composition with Franz Flößner in Wiesbaden (Germany). He was a founding member of the "Wiesbadener Kammerorchester" and for five decades its concertmaster.
Helmut May made his living as an editor at the famous music publishing house Schott and later as a music pedagogue at the "Gymnasium am Mosbacher Berg" in Wiesbaden.
He made several arrangements of popular orchestral music for student orchestras which were published by Schott. His own compositions remained unpublished, only his violin concerto "I want to die easy" was commercially released in 1980 by Schott.
In his late years Helmut May also came back to writing novels and published several stories like "Der Herr aus Leipzig", "Die Burg", "Heimlich, mit dem Nachtzug..." or "Cziupke träumt".
Helmut May died on 27.05.2013 in Wiesbaden.
Helmut May Archive
In my possession is the main musical estate of Helmut May. In the finding aid below I provide information about the documents in the archive.
Here are scores of some compositions by Helmut May:
7 Geigenduette
The "7 Violin duets" (7 Geigenduette) are little pieces for the violin student introducing the formal principles of the 12-tone-technique. The first four duets introduce a Prime row, than the Inversion, Retrograde and the Retrograde-Inversion of this Prime row. The final three duets combine several of these transformations.
The score contains a small preface and some short annotations, hence you can find the original German version and an English version with my translation below.
Maqam concerto for violin and orchestra
Impromptu for violin and string orchestra
Konzertante Musik, for violin and string orchestra
Concerto for 2 violins and string orchestra
Adagio for violin and string orchestra
