Karl Senn

Karl Senn (born January 31, 1878 in Innsbruck ; † July 26, 1964 there ) was an Austrian organist and composer .

Life

Karl Senn received his first music lessons from his father Johann, who was the school director and choirmaster of St. Nikolaus . From 1894 to 1899 he learned organ, piano and music theory from Josef Pembaur the Elder at the school of the Innsbruck Musikverein . Since his parents were against him becoming a musician, he first studied medicine and then law, where he received his doctorate in 1905. From 1899 he worked as a civil servant in the railway, but also worked as an organist, concert accompanist, accompanist , conductor and music critic. From 1897 to 1899 he was second choir master of the academic choir and from 1920 to 1924 of the Innsbrucker Liedertafel. In 1924 he retired as a senior state railway councilor and then lived in Vienna until 1927, where he directed the Tyrolean choir. In 1927 he became music director of the academic services in the Innsbruck Jesuit Church , and from 1932 he worked as a freelance composer.

In the time of Austrofascism , Senn played an important role in Tyrolean musical life and made numerous contributions to the songbook Die Hour der Heimat . He had close contacts with the conservative, clerical, anti-Semitic Brother Willram Association. As early as 1933 he became an illegal member of the NSDAP , in 1937 he was again illegally sworn in to Adolf Hitler together with Josef Eduard Ploner . For the referendum after the annexation of Austria  on April 10, 1938, he set the marching song Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer to music . In 1941 he worked on the soldier's song book In the Same Step and Step. Song book of East Mark soldiers with. From 1940 he was head of the composers' department in the Reichsmusikkammer , Gau Tirol-Vorarlberg .

Senn's works include numerous songs, piano works, chamber music works, male, female and mixed choirs, orchestral works, organ works and three operas. His songs and male choirs as well as his church music were widespread. His instrumental works are formally based on Richard Strauss and Béla Bartók . With the radicalization of his worldview from around 1930, his comparatively progressive compositional attitude declined.

His son Walter Senn (1904–1981) was a musicologist in Innsbruck.

Awards

• Professional title Professor , 1928
• Ring of Honor of the City of Innsbruck, 1953
• Gold Medal of Honor of the State of Tyrol , 1956

Works

• Ode to fire , cantata, op.32, 1907
• 1809 , symphonic poem based on pictures by Albin Egger-Lienz , op.101
• Philippine Welser , opera
• The Pied Piper , comedy, 1917
• Hanns Wurst , Singspiel
• The pilgrimage of love , pantomime
• Sun you lamenting flame , melodrama
• Francis cantata
• Passion Cantata
• The secret garden , suite for small orchestra based on poems by Peter Paul Althaus
• Märchen in Nervi , operetta, 1938 (first performed 1948)
• The Parrot of Pompadour , Operetta, op.105

literature

• Barbara Boisits, Christian Fastl: Senn, family. 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 .
• Franz Gratl: On Tyrolean musical life during the Nazi era. In: Wissenschaftliches Jahrbuch der Tiroler Landesmuseen, Volume 6 (2013), pp. 25–41. ( PDF (624 kB) on ZOBODAT )

Web links

• Karl Senn (1878–1964) , Association of Tyrolean Composers: Nazi Era

Individual evidence

1. ↑ City of Innsbruck: Ring of Honor (PDF; 233 kB)