Works by Karl-Michael Vitt
Biography
At the age of six I started with my first piano lesson. As an adult I learned to play the oboe and later the organ. Since childhood I have had the desire to learn the musical language of the immortal composers.
Most of all I was impressed by the art of polyphony, as exemplified in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach or in the late piano sonatas and string quartets composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.
The Art of the Fugue
Which path leads from the musical idea to a canon or a fugue? This was one of the questions I asked myself.
Prof. Theodor F. Müller (Мюллер, Теодор Фридрихович 1912 - 2000) who taught for many years at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow (Московская государственная консерватория имени П. И. Чайковского) and Prof. Elena W. Wjaskowa, Professor for polyphony at the Russian Gnesin Academy for Music (Российская академия музыки имени Гнесиных) , the second conservatory in Moscow, both supported me in answering all these questions.
Answers from Bach and Beethoven
Elena W. Wjaskowa is among the leading musicologists worldwide who study Bach. In 2006 she published fundamental research on the Art of the Fugue by J.S. Bach.
In cooperation with the Beethovenhaus in Bonn she published a book regarding Ludwig van Beethoven's draft book dating from 1823, which you can see in the Muscovite Glinka Museum.
Among others it contains sketches of the late string quartets opus 132.
Those two great musicians helped me to learn the language of music. To educate me, neither Prof. Müller nor Prof. Wjaskowas referred me to text books, but rather to the works of the great composers. Imitation of their works is the key.
That is the procedure by which the secret of a trade is carried on: the trainee first of all tries to copy the work of his master before he creates his own.
This was how I learned to work with various tonalities and the basics of polyphony.
The Secret of Canonical Form
In the same way I familiarized myself with musical form. The composer Sergey J. Taneev (1856 - 1915) teacher of Rachmaninow, Medtner, and Skriabin was introduced to me by Prof. Elena W. Wjaskowa. Now he became my teacher as well. With his writings on canonical form and flexible counterpoint, he disclosed to me their secrets and thus became my instructor.
With this knowledge, I processed centuries of music history by imitating the compositions, from J.S. Bach to Olivier Messiaen. My favorite excerpts were collected in a booklet like vocabulary lists; I used that material as a tool to continually play and improvise.
Master of Improvisations Ansgar Wallenhorst, a great musician known for his organ improvisations, exposed me to the world of harmony and modes, which have been in constant transition throughout musical history. Ansgar Wallenhorst, cantor at St. Peter and Paul in Ratingen, explained to me in particular the tonal language of the French composers César Franck, Louis Vierne and Maurice Duruflé on up to Messiaen and Escaich.
All of my compositions have evolved in this manner over the course of many years, up to the present day.
Compositions of mine were heard on Deutschlandfunk.
You can find tracks from me on many platforms: Spotify, Apple Music (incl. Shazam), Amazon Music, YouTube Music, YouTube Content ID, Soundcloud Go and others.
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek:
https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&query=karl-michael+vitt