Jean Kurt Forest

Born Jean Kurt Forst[1] in Darmstadt,[2] the son of a paperhanger, he learned to play the violin at the age of four. From age six, he received a thorough and varied musical education at the Spangenberg Conservatory in Wiesbaden, studying violin, voice, piano, trumpet, timpani and harmony until 1925.[2] He mostly taught himself to play the viola and to compose.[3]

He worked as concert master in Wiesbaden for the UFA film orchestra in 1926, and in the same position for the Alhambra cinema in Berlin from 1927 to 1930,[2] collaborating in both locations with conductor Paul Dessau.[4] From 1930 to 1933, he played principal viola for the Rundfunksinfonieorchester Frankfurt, and in the same role for the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and the Hamburg State Opera[2] from 1934 to 1936.[5] In 1937 he was arrested by the Nazis because of his anti-fascism attitude. Dismissed from all positions, he emigrated to Paris, but was expelled back to Germany in 1938.[5] He worked as Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater Neiße,[5] and from 1939 at the Staatstheater Braunschweig.[2]

In 1942, Forest was drafted to the Wehrmacht, but in 1945 defected to the Red Army.[5] As a prisoner of war until 1948, he attended an Antifa School and led its group Music and Artistics.[2] When he returned to Germany, he settled in East Berlin[6] and joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).[2] He participated in Berlin in various functions in the development of musical life in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), first as a consultant for choral music at the Berliner Rundfunk to 1951, and as Kapellmeister for Deutscher Fernsehfunk from 1952. He was a freelance composer from 1954.[6]

In 1951, Forest was one of the founding members of the Verband der Komponisten und Musikwissenschaftler der DDR (VDK)[2] and was Chairman of the Berlin District Association from 1967 to 1971.[2] In 1970 he was admitted to the Akademie der Künste der DDR (DAK).[7] From 1969 until his death, he directed the chamber ensemble Musica Nova.[5]

He died in Berlin at age 65, and was buried at the Südwestkirchhof Stahnsdorf.

Forest composed around 250 songs,[5] several of the genre Massenlied. His opera Der arme Konrad, written between 1955 and 1957 after a play by Friedrich Wolf,[2] was followed in 1960 by the chamber opera Tai Yang erwacht,[5] also after Wolf. In his stage works, Forest focused on historic topics, pointing at social conscience, such as fascism, war and the atomic bomb.[6] In the 1960s, Forest was also active as a film score composer, for example in Credo: Martin Luther – Wittenberg 1517 and Wenn Du zu mir hältst.[5]

• Forest, Jean Kurt. In Minister of Intra-German Relations (ed.): SBZ-Biographie. Ein biographisches Nachschlagebuch über die sowjetische Besatzungszone, Zusammengestellt vom Untersuchungsausschuß Freiheitlicher Juristen. Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Bonn 1964, p. 91.
• Hans-Joachim Kynaß: Jean Kurt Forest / Kurzbiographie und ausgewählte Werke, in association with the Music Council of the GDR. Association of German Composers and Musicologists, Musikinformationszentrum, Berlin 1967.

• Literature by and about Jean Kurt Forest in the German National Library catalogue
• Jean Kurt Forest at IMDb
• Georg Plathe: Interview (interview, in German) in: Siegfried Trzoß: Schlagergeschichte(n) des Ostens, vol. 1. 1945–1965, Berlin 2007
• Jean-Kurt-Forest-Archiv Archives of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
• Forest, Jean Kurt Verlag Neue Musik