Alfred Wolfsohn (23 September 1896 – 5 February 1962) was a German singing teacher who suffered persistent auditory hallucination of screaming soldiers, whom he had witnessed dying of wounds while serving as a stretcher bearer in the trenches of World War I.Wolfsohn, A., Die Brücke. London 1947 (Manuscript). Trans. Marita Günther and Sheila Braggins. Repository: Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam.Wolfsohn, A., Orpheus, oder der Weg zu einer Maske. Germany 1936–1938 (Manuscript). Trans. Marita Günther. Repository: Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam. Wolfsohn was diagnosed with shell shock, but did not respond to treatment. He subsequently cured himself by vocalizing extreme sounds, bringing about what he described as a combination of catharsis and exorcism.Newham, P. The Prophet of Song: The Life and Work of Alfred Wolfsohn. London 1997. Tigers Eye Press.
Inspired by the range and flexibility of his voice, which developed as a consequence of the exercises and experiments he pursued, Wolfsohn began teaching others to use his vocal techniques as a form of therapeutic expression, which were later incorporated into drama therapy and music therapy. Meanwhile, some pupils of Wolfsohn used the extraordinary vocal range they developed to create performing arts productions, which influenced avant-garde theatre and experimental music.
After Wolfsohn died in 1962, many of his long-standing pupils formed a theatre company called the Roy Hart Theatre, under the direction of South African actor Roy Hart, who had studied with Wolfsohn for fifteen years, which continued to influence practices within expressive arts therapies and the performing arts.
Overview
Alfred Wolfsohn was conscripted to serve as a stretcher-bearer in the trenches of World War I in 1914, when he was eighteen years old. After his discharge, Wolfsohn suffered persistent auditory hallucination of screaming soldiers, whom he had witnessed dying of wounds during his service.
After being subsequently diagnosed with shell shock, Wolfsohn failed to recover in response to hospitalization or psychiatric treatment, but cured himself by vocalizing extreme sounds, bringing about what he described as a combination of catharsis and exorcism.
Inspired by the range and expressiveness of his voice, which resulted from the vocal exercises and techniques he developed in an attempt to heal the symptoms of trauma sustained during the war, Wolfsohn began teaching others, acting as both a singing teacher and psychotherapist, seeking to combine the principles of both disciplines.Newham, P. "The psychology of voice and the founding of the Roy Hart Theatre". New Theatre Quarterly IX No. 33. February 1993, pp. 59–65. Wolfsohn had no formal training in either field, but nonetheless became a critic of traditional vocal pedagogy and an advocate for the principles of analytical psychology developed by Carl Jung.Günther, M., "The Human Voice: On Alfred Wolfsohn". Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture 50. 1990 pp. 65–75.
Wolfsohn began his teaching in Berlin, whilst working with the opera singer Paula Salomon-Lindberg where he developed a close mentoring relationship with the painter Charlotte Salomon. Wolfsohn and his theories inspired Charlotte Salomon to create her artwork Leben? Oder Theater? Ein Singespiel, assigning to him the name Amadeus Daberlohn.Löwenthal Felstiner, M., To Paint her Life: Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi Mirror. New York: Harper Collins, 1994.Salomon, C., Charlotte: Life or Theatre, ed. U.G. Schwartz with a preface by Judith C. E. Belinfante and an introduction by Judith Herzberg. London: Allen Lane, Penguin, 1981.
After escaping Nazi Germany, Wolfsohn came to London and established the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre in a large house in Golders Green, offering an approach to singing lessons and voice training based solely upon his self-devised techniques.Hart, R., et al., 'An Outline of the Work of the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre', subsequently published in 'The Roy Hart Theatre: Documentation and Interviews', Dartington Theatre Papers, ed. David Williams, Fifth Series, No. 14, pp. 2–7. Series ed. Peter Hulton. Dartington College of Arts, 1985. The aim of his lessons was to help students extend the range and expressiveness of their voice to include every possible vocal sound, which he believed both represented and precipitated the realization of increased human potential in other areas of life.Shepard, L., An Empirical Therapy Based on an Extension of Vocal Range and Expression in Singing and Drama. Paper read at the Sixth International Congress of Psychotherapy, London, August 1964. Repository: Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Leslie Shepard, Dublin, Ireland.
Wolfsohn subscribed to the views of Carl Jung, who proposed that each human psyche comprises a composite of subpersonalities that appear most vividly in dreams. Wolfsohn sought to enable the expression of these subpersonalities through distinct vocal sounds.Stevens, A., On Jung. London and New York: Routledge, 1990.Newham, P. (1990) "The voice and the shadow". Performance 60, Spring 1990, pp. 37–47.Newham, P. (1992) "Jung and Alfred Wolfsohn: analytical psychology and the singing voice". Journal of Analytical Psychology, 37, pp. 323–336.
A number of notable authors, theatre directors, philosophers, and scientists took lessons with Wolfsohn, or observed demonstrations by his students, subsequently acknowledging his contribution to their work, including R. D. Laing, Irene Worth, Jean-Louis Barrault, Aldous Huxley, and Julian Huxley.Wolfsohn, A., Letters to Aldous Huxley. April – July 1958. Repository: Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Leslie Shepard, Dublin, Ireland.Huxley, J., "Letter to Alfred Wolfsohn. 14 November 1958". Repository: Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Leslie Shepard, Dublin, Ireland.
When Wolfsohn died in 1962, the group of long-standing students divided.
One group continued to train their voices under the leadership of Roy Hart, a South African actor and regular attendant of the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre since 1947, who extended the vocal demonstrations for invited audiences, instigated by Wolfsohn, into full public performances, including Eight Songs for a Mad King, composed especially for Hart by Peter Maxwell Davies.
This group left the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre in Golders Green in 1969, migrated to new premises in Hampstead, and formed a performing arts troupe, assuming the name the Roy Hart Theatre, which included some who like Hart had studied with Alfred Wolfsohn, and others who had never met the German teacher, but had been students in Hart's drama classes, which the South African actor began teaching at venues across London during the late 1950s.
In 1974 the Roy Hart Theatre moved to the south of France to establish a permanent rehearsal studio, school, and drama troupe. Roy Hart died in a car accident a year later, but the French-based group of remaining members continued producing experimental theatre and music productions and teaching the approach to vocal expression initially established by Wolfsohn. The other group, including vocalist Jenny Johnson and film maker, author, and archivist Leslie Shepard, dispersed and sought to continue the work of the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre.
Alfred Wolfsohn was instrumental in precipitating and inspiring many types of extended vocal technique used by performing artists who incorporate into their performances sounds not usually used in speech or song. In addition, Wolfsohn was a major influence on the therapeutic and creative work of Paul Newham, Wolfsohn's official biographer who together with Leslie Shepard re-established the London base for the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre in 1990.
Childhood Alfred Wolfsohn was born in Berlin into a German Jewish family.
In his unpublished manuscripts, Wolfsohn repeatedly describes himself as an exceptionally detached child, an outsider, and an observer, and he attributes this experience to being one of few Jewish children at school.Wolfsohn, A., The Biography of an Idea. London 1943–1960. (Manuscript). Trans. Marita Günther. Repository: Roy Hart Theatre Archives, Malérargues, France.Wolfsohn, A., The Problem of Limitations. London 1958 (Manuscript). Trans. Kaya Anderson. Repository: Roy Hart Theatre Archives, Malérargues, France.
When Wolfsohn was 10 years old, his father, who had been a rifleman in the Franco-Prussian War, died of tuberculosis. Prior to his father's death, Wolfsohn had been disturbed by the sounds of his mother screaming during sexual intercourse, which he could hear from his bedroom. After his father died, Wolfsohn developed a close relationship with his mother, who comforted him by singing, using a high voice to depict an angel and a low voice for St Peter. Wolfsohn asserted that hearing his mother express both unpleasant screams and beautiful singing contributed to his belief that the human voice should be able to express the complete spectrum of human emotion.
World War I and illness
In 1914, Wolfsohn was conscripted to military service and served as a stretcher bearer in the trenches of World War I along both the Eastern and Western front. During this time, Wolfsohn became disturbed by the vocal sounds that wounded and dying soldiers made. Furthermore, he experienced intense guilt at having run for safety, leaving behind a badly wounded soldier, rather than risking his own life to save the dying man.Günther, M., The Human Voice, Paper read at the National Conference on Drama Therapy, Antioch University, San Francisco, November 1986. Published on audio tape by Roy Hart Theatre, Malérargues, France.Newham, P., The Singing Cure: An Introduction to Voice Movement Therapy. London: Random House, 1993 and Boston: Shambhala, 1994.
After the war, Wolfsohn was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Berlin, where he was diagnosed with shell shock, prescribed medication, and underwent hypnosis. Wolfsohn complained that his treatment failed to alleviate the auditory hallucinations of the vocal screams he had heard whilst serving in the trenches. Wolfsohn later recorded that, after being discharged from hospital, he felt as though he was dead for many years, but came back to life when he started singing.
Recovery and initial experimental work
After discharge from hospital, Wolfsohn worked in a variety of positions, including rent-collector, bank teller, piano player for silent films, and hazzan at synagogue funerals. During this period, he also took singing lessons with a range of teachers.
Although he attributed his recovery from shell shock to these lessons, he also criticized his teachers for their adherence to a classical bel canto approach, which prohibited him from giving voice to the sounds he had heard in the trenches. He therefore supplemented and eventually replaced the singing lessons with his own experiments, seeking to push his voice to its limits in range and timbre.Salomon-Lindberg, P., interviewed by Mary Löwenthal Felstiner, Amsterdam, 23–26 March 1984; 15–20 April 1985; 6–8 July 1988; 14 July 1993. Trans. Franz Weisz. Repository: Franz Weisz Film Research Archives, Amsterdam and Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Paul Newham, London.Salomon-Lindberg, P., interviewed by Franz Weisz, Amsterdam, 1981. Trans Franz Weisz. Repository: Franz Weisz Film Research Archives, Amsterdam and Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Paul Newham, London.Salomon-Lindberg, P., interviewed by Paul Newham, Amsterdam, August 1991. Repository: Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Paul Newham, London.
Early teaching
In 1933, Hitler became chancellor of Germany, and Wolfsohn began to experience the discrimination to which all German Jews were subjected at that time.