Hans Wolfgang Sachse

Hans Wolfgang Sachse was born on 17 March 1899 in Dresden (Germany). Due to job relocations of his father Hans Wolfgang Sachse grew up in Dresden, Zwickau and Leipzig and also went to the "Thomasschule zu Leipzig". Since 1912 the family lived in Plauen, where Hans Wolfgang Sachse finished school in 1917. After his military service and the end of World War I Hans Wolfgang Sachse moved to Leipzig and began to study music at the conservatory under Paul Graener, Stephan Krehl and Otto Lohse and music theory at the university under Hermann Abert, Hugo Riemann and Arnold Schering.

In 1921 his father died and he had to stop his studies and became the Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater Plauen. Since 1927 Hans Wolfgang Sachse worked as composer, music teacher and repetiteur and was also the choirmaster for several choirs in the region. Through the "Volkschöre" Plauen and Netzschkau Hans Wolfgang Sachse was connected to the labour movement around 1930 and for example composed a proletarian choir work „Rote Fahne“, which all together led to a performance ban by the Nazi party NSDAP of his compositions in Plauen. He later managed to work again under the Nazi regime, only to be detained in the Russian NKVD Special Camp No.1 in Mühlberg for some years after the end of World War II.

After his release Hans Wolfgang Sachse got strongly involved with the composer's society of the GDR and worked as a composer with a focus on choral and vocal music as well as orchestral music. For his work he received the Karl-Marx-Stadt Art Prize in 1960 and the bronze order of merit of the GDR in 1981.

Hans Wolfgang Sachse died on 20 December 1982 in Plauen.

Hans Wolfgang Sachse composed a symphony, many symphonic works, concertos for violin, piano, trumpet and a double concertino for oboe and bassoon, an opera, 6 string quartets, trios, sonatas and other chamber music, songs, and light music.

The Violin concerto op.10 was composed between 1927 and January 1929. The world premiere took place in Plauen on 17 March 1930 with Emil Langhof (violin), the Städtisches Orchester Plauen and Hans Wolfgang Sachse (conductor). The work is dedicated to Emil Langhof, the soloist of the world premiere and for many decades the concertmaster of the Städtisches Orchester Plauen. The original autograph manuscript of the Violin concerto is archived with most of his other compositions at the Stadtarchiv Plauen.

© pictures of Hans Wolfgang Sachse by kind courtesy of the composer's children