Hugo Kaun

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Hugo Kaun

Hugo Wilhelm Ludwig Kaun (born March 21, 1863 in Berlin ; † April 2, 1932 there ) was a German composer , conductor and music teacher . His works were highly valued in Germany and America.

Life

His father Johann Ludwig Kaun (1830–1886) was a textile manufacturer from Konitz in West Prussia. His mother Emma Albertine Wilhelmine was born Kräutlein (1841–1926). Hugo Kaun's marriage to Clara Friedrich (1865–1954) produced five children: Bernhard , Martha, Margarethe, Maria and Ella.

After Hugo Kaun's school days at the Andreas Realgymnasium in Berlin, he studied music in 1876. He received his first musical training in his hometown of Berlin, where he studied music and piano with Oskar Raif and from 1879 composition with Friedrich Kiel at the Royal Academy of Music , founded in 1869 . He was expelled from college for repeatedly skipping classes. He then did his military service and then founded a music publishing house. In 1887 he left for the United States of America.

In Chicago Kaun studied with the German-American music theorist Bernhard Ziehn , from whom Wilhelm Middelschulte also received his tools. Later he taught, like Middelschulte, at the local conservatory. This was followed by activities as a music teacher, conductor and composer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and other places until 1901, as well as the founder and conductor of the Milwaukee Liederkranz and the head of the festive days of the Northwestern Singing Association . Under the pseudonym Ferdinand Bold Kaun wrote upscale in difficult economic times popular music . His friend Theodore Thomas , founder and conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra , arranged for his three symphonies to be performed in America.

Hugo Kaun's grave in the Zehlendorf cemetery

In 1900 he returned to Berlin and lived at Schwerinstrasse 25 (renamed Kaunstrasse on March 20, 1937) in Zehlendorf . The family followed two years later. By this time Kaun had written his opus 49. After he was accepted as a teacher at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Berlin, he was appointed professor in 1912. From 1922 to 1932 Kaun worked as a composition teacher at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory . He also continued his extensive teaching activities in private. His composition students were Heinrich Kaminski , Hans Uldall , Walter Gronostay , Max Donisch , Walter Morse Rummel and his youngest son Bernhard Kaun .

Hugo Kaun died in Berlin in 1932 at the age of 69. He is buried in the Zehlendorf cemetery. (Field 017-524) On the tombstone there is a bronze relief with a portrait of Kaun in profile.

plant

Hugo Kaun is considered to be a modern late romantic who perceived himself and his music as "German". The contemporary critics agreed with him. In many of his works he consistently applied the harmony principles of his teacher Bernhard Ziehn , namely the symmetrical inversion. He saw himself as close to Max Reger and Hans Pfitzner . In contrast, he viewed Arnold Schönberg's music with disdain.

From 1920 onwards, Kaun's compositional style changed significantly; these late works represent a sound and style symbiosis of Wagnerian expressiveness on the one hand and elements of impressionism on the other. The fact that Kaun's music was played particularly often after his death in the Third Reich is solely due to the unfortunate circumstance that he and Peter Raabe , the later head of the Reichsmusikkammer and dedicatee of his 2nd symphony, was good friends. This is how his works, especially the women's a cappella choirs and operas, were often heard up until the late 1930s.

An intensive, musicological review of Kaun's complete works is still pending.

Works

  • Harmony and modulation theory . Leipzig, Zimmermann, 1915; 1921 (2nd edition)
  • Out of my life. Experienced and listened to autobiography. B.-Zehlendorf, Linos-Verlag, 1932. New edition Hamburg 1999

Music editions

Hugo Kaun: 2nd piano concerto
(1st page)
  • “Märkische Suite” for orchestra op. 92
  • Symphonic poem "Sir John Falstaff" op. 60
  • 1st Piano Concerto in E flat minor, op.50
  • 2nd Piano Concerto in C minor, Op. 115
  • Octet op.34
  • Symphony No. 3 in E minor, Op. 96
  • "Vom Deutschen Rhein" (for male choir)
  • Operas
    • " Sappho "
    • "The stranger"
    • "Menandra"
    • "The Pietist" ("Oliver Brown")

All of Hugo Kaun's works are cataloged in the Hugo Kaun catalog raisonné (HKW).

Honors

  • Honorary member of the Leopoldina Breslau singers
  • Honorary member of the German Choir

literature

  • Wilhelm Altmann : Hugo Kaun , in: Monographs of modern musicians. CF Kahnt, Leipzig 1906, pp. 156-164
  • Werner Bollert:  Kaun, Hugo. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 362 ( digitized version ).
  • Georg Richard Kruse: Hugo Kaun . In: Zeitschrift für Musik , 98th vol. (1931), pp. 105–110
  • Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945 . Pp. 3596-3598
  • Richard Schaal: Hugo Kaun, life and work. A contribution to the music of the turn of the century . Habbel-Verlag , Regensburg 1946. New edition Hamburg 2005.
  • Hartmut Hein: Kaun, Hugo , in: Music in the past and present . 2nd edition. Person part, Vol. 9. Bärenreiter, Kassel and Metzler, Stuttgart 2003, Sp. 1560–1562
  • Hartmut Hein: The Second String Quartet by Hugo Kaun (1863-1932). A “Gothic” string quartet from America and its success throughout Germany following the Essen Tonkünstler Festival in 1906 , in: Robert von Zahn, Wolfram Ferber, Klaus Pietschmann (eds.): Das Streichquartett im Rheinland ( Contributions to the History of Rhenish Music 167). Merseburger, Kassel 2005, pp. 66–115
  • Walter Zielke: Hugo Kaun, Der Komet von Berlin , in: Die Tonkunst , 1st year, No. 2 (April 2007), pp. 143–145

Web links

Commons : Hugo Kaun  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 675.
personal data
SURNAME Kaun, Hugo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaun, Hugo Wilhelm Ludwig; Ferdinand Bold (pseudonym); Emil Frascard (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, conductor and music teacher
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1932
Place of death Berlin