Bernhard Berchtold Tenor - Jeannette La-Deur, Piano

Margarete Schweikert - Im bitteren Menschenland
Lieder after Poems by Ehrler, Goethe, Goll, Hartleben, Heine, Hölderlin, Holst, Lasker-Schüler, Morgenstern ...

Margarete Schweikert was born on the 16th of February, 1887 in Karlsruhe/Germany, the residency of the former Margrave of Baden. She remained the only child of her parents Luise, née Petry, and Friedrich Schweikert. Both were interested in music, Luise played the piano, Friedrich the violin. They also sang with their only daughter. At the age of 14, Margarete left the lyceum and concentrated on the artistic formation at the Munz‘sche Konservatorium in Karlsruhe, where she studied violin, piano and possibly singing. At the Badisches Konservatorium, the precursor of the Badische Hochschule für Musik (Baden University of Music), she was taught the violin by Heinrich Deecke, first violinist of the Großherzoglich Badische Hofkapelle (Court Orchestra of the Margrave of Baden) and in the theory of music and composition by Max Herold. During her studies, Margarete Schweikert began to perform as a violinist in Karlsruhe. For her concerts, again and again, she wrote new songs and combined them with compositions for the violin. In the winter semester 1912/13, Schweikert continued her studies in Stuttgart privately. Her teachers were the violinist Carl Wendling and the composer Joseph Haas, an alumnus of Max Reger, both were lecturers at the local Königliche Konservatorium (Royal Conservatory).
The most prolific years of the song composer Margarete Voigt-Schweikert lay between 1910 and 1925. In 1924, her daughter Christiane was born, later, due to the National Socialist Party’s employment policy, she was not allowed to work, and only because she was married. After World War II and after several strokes of fate, she wrote another few songs. Margarete Voigt-Schweikert died in her native city on March the 13th, 1957.
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