The German cellist, Hans-Eberhard Dentler, atthended the classical secondary school, graduated (Arbitur). Since the age of 10, he has already studying the violoncello, among other under Siegfried Barchet, at that time first solo cellist of the Münchener Kammerorchester. In addition, he had private studies with the renowned Pierre Fournier. Simultaneously, he studied human medicine at the the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (the University of Munich) . He passed the state examination and obtained his Doctorate in Medicine. Subsequely, he terminated all his medical activities, and since then has been exlusively free-lance cellist and soloist.
As a soloist and chamber musician, Hans-Eberhard Dentler has performed in many European countries. He gave conceret in Germany, France, England, Spain, Switzereland and Denmark, among others in Paris, London, Zürich, Munich, Berlin, etc. He was several times invited to the Vatican to play the J.S. Bach's Cello Suites for Pope Benedict XVI. When he accepted the invitation to become a member of the World Academy of Art and Science the ceremony took place in Pari followed by a concert of J.S. Bach's music. He has been living as a free-lance cellist in Italy for from 1985 to 2014, and founder of a Bach Society in Italy. In 1996 he founded the ensemble L'Arte della Fuga.
Hans-Eberhard Dentler has been studying J.S. Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge (BWV 1080) for over ten years. He has also written two works on J.S. Bach. His "J.S. Bach: Kunst der Fuge: Ein pythagoreisches Werk und seine Verwirklichung" (The Art of Fugue, a Pythagorean Mystery Unveiled) (Schott Music, 2003; available in German and Italian but not in English) is an explanation of the origin of J.S. Bach's last composition. At his death, J.S. Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach discovered an unfinished manuscript of contrapuntal pieces but with no indication of how they were to be performed. Some believed them to be keyboard pieces, others that they were for private study and the ‘inner ear.’ Lorenz Christoph Mizler who was a student of J.S. Bach created the Societät der musikalischen Wissenschaften devoted to the study of Pythagorean philosophy and the union of music, philosophy, mathematics and science. J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann were all members. Dentler’s patient detective work, musicianship and scholarship have finally enabled him to solve the mystery of this great work. For Dentler Die Kunst der Fuge is very clearly based on Pythagorean philosophical principles and for that reason, as befitted the Pythagoreans, it is deliberately presented as an enigma. More recently he has written: "J.S. Bach: Musicalisches Opfer: Musik als Abbild der Sphärenharmonie" (Schott Music, 2008), arguing that it is an attempt to represent ‘the music of the spheres.’
As of 1980, Hans-Eberhard Dentler played a violoncello from Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. |