Meissner, Richard

Musicologist, choral conductor

Born: 23.04.1903 in Mühlheim am Main

died: 03.12.1991 in Wiesbaden

Meißner spent his youth in Biebrich, where he founded and directed a school orchestra at the age of fourteen and worked as a temporary organist at the parish church of St. Marien. After passing his school-leaving examination and taking private music lessons (piano and organ), he studied at the University of Frankfurt and at Dr. Hoch's conservatory from 1921. His dissertation on "Georg Friedrich Telemann's Frankfurt church cantatas" was published in 1925.

Meißner became a répétiteur at the theaters in Mainz and Wiesbaden and occasionally conducted the Kurorchester. In 1927, he took over the management of the music teachers' seminar at the Spangenberg Conservatory. He held this position until 1987, interrupted only by the years of closure in 1944-48. Before the war, Meißner also taught at the Realgymnasium in Oranienstraße and the girls' secondary school on Boseplatz. He was deputy music advisor to the Prussian government in Wiesbaden, chairman of the local branch of the "Reichsverband Deutscher Tonkünstler und Musiklehrer" (Reich Association of German Musicians and Music Teachers), group choir leader of the Groß-Wiesbaden district in the Nassau singing region and chairman of the "Cäcilienverein" (later the choir of the city of Wiesbaden).

After his return from captivity as a prisoner of war, Meißner campaigned for the reconstruction of the conservatory, which found a suitable home in a municipal property in Bodenstedtstraße in 1956 after various emergency accommodations. He also directed the orchestra of the Wiesbaden Conservatory until 1985. He was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1973. Meißner was married to the opera singer and singing teacher Elfriede Meißner-Draeger.