Karl Franz Rankl

Karl Franz Rankl (born October 1, 1898 in Gaaden , Lower Austria ; † September 6, 1968 in Sankt Gilgen near Salzburg ) was an Austrian conductor and composer .

Life

Memorial plaque on the house where he was born in Gaaden

Karl Franz Rankl studied with Arnold Schönberg and Anton von Webern in Vienna from 1918 to 1921 . Initially Kapellmeister at the Volksoper there, he was opera director at the Reichenberg City Theater from 1925 to 1927 . 1927/1928 conductor at the Stadttheater Königsberg , from 1928 to 1931 assistant to Otto Klemperer and Kapellmeister at the Kroll Opera in Berlin , 1931/32 general music director of the Stadttheater in Wiesbaden and 1933–37 opera director at the Landestheater in Graz . 1937/38 he was at the New German Theater in Prague , where he in 1938 the premiere of Krenek's twelve-tone opera Charles V initiated. Rankl emigrated to Great Britain when the Second World War broke out and was musical director of the Covent Garden Opera from 1946–51 . from 1952 to 1957 he directed the Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow and Edinburgh and from 1958 to 1960 musical director of the Elizabethan Opera Company in Sydney .

Rankl composed, among other things, eight symphonies, the oratorio Der Mensch and the opera Deirdre of the Sorrows , which was commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951 but has not yet been premiered.

literature

• Alexander Rausch : Karl Franz Rankl. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7001-3046-5 .
• Frank Howes: Lexicon article in New Grove , second edition, Oxford University Press 2001.
• Nicole Ristow: Karl Rankl: Life, Work and Exile of an Austrian Composer and Conductor , Neumünster: von Bockel Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-95675-011-3

Web links

• Media from and about Karl Franz Rankl in the catalog of the German National Library
• Portrait photo and engl. biography