Walter Kaufmann (composer)

Walter Kaufmann (born April 1, 1907 in Karlsbad ; † September 9, 1984 in Bloomington , Indiana ) was a German ethnomusicologist , composer and conductor who was particularly concerned with the history of Indian and Chinese music .

Life

Walter Kaufmann was the son of Julius Kaufmann († 1938) and Josefine Kaufmann († 1956), both of whom were Jews. After graduating from high school in Karlovy Vary, Kaufmann received his first musical training from his uncle, the composer and music historian Moritz Kaufmann (* 1871; † around 1942 in the Treblinka concentration camp), later in Prague from the composer Fidelio F. Finke and the violinist Willy Schweyda. He then briefly studied musicology with Curt Sachs at the Berlin Music Academy and composition with Franz Schreker . From 1927 he continued his studies at the Charles University in Prague with Gustav Becking and Paul Nettl. In the following years he worked successfully as a conductor in Prague and Eger (today Cheb ), also in Potsdam at the UFA and at the Barnowsky theaters in Berlin. He was temporarily assistant to the conductor Bruno Walter at the Deutsche Oper Berlin . He worked with the composer Ralph Benatzky and conducted his works. At the same time, several orchestras in Berlin and Czechoslovakia performed his own works. Between 1932 and 1934 Kaufmann could also be heard as a pianist on the Prague radio. Kaufmann had submitted his dissertation on Gustav Mahler's symphonies in Prague, but withdrew it for political reasons in 1934, one year after the National Socialist seizure of power .

In that year Kaufmann went to India to study Indian music. Kaufmann financed the trip by selling the performance rights to his operetta The White Goddess, which premiered in Karlovy Vary in 1935 . As a Jew, it was no longer possible for him to return to his previous places of work as planned. In Bombay (now Mumbai ) he was employed by the state broadcaster All India Radio . As a result of politics, his stay in India extended to twelve years and so he headed the station's European classical music department from 1938 to 1946. In addition to his work at All India Radio , Kaufmann composed numerous works; his 1937 piano concerto was first broadcast on Prague radio that year. Until then, his earlier chamber music pieces and orchestral works were still broadcast in Prague. He also composed the signature tune for All India Radio , which became known to the international jazz audience from 1971 through Carla Bley's Escalator over the Hill .

Shortly after 1933, the National Socialists began to abuse the UFA film studios for their national propaganda. Among the group of filmmakers who then came to Bombay in 1934 were the film director Franz Osten , who made Bollywood films from 1935 , and the writer Wilhelm Haas, who was friends with Franz Kafka , the latter at the instigation of Kaufmann. Haas, Kaufmann and the Indian producer Mohan Bhavnani worked together on the film Premnagar , which was released in theaters in 1940. Haas was responsible for the script and Kaufmann for the film music. Kaufmann founded the chamber music association Bombay Chamber Society , which performed his compositions and in which he played the piano and viola. The members of the group also included the conductor and violinist Mehli Mehta (1908–2002), father of the conductor Zubin Mehta .

Kaufmann intended to return to Prague in 1945, but this did not succeed because his mother's assets had been confiscated after the war and she had to emigrate to Canada in 1948. Instead, he went from Bombay to London in 1946, where he received a few assignments as a conductor with the BBC . He promised more success in Canada, where from 1947 he became head of the Pianoforte Department at the Halifax Conservatory of Music in Halifax and, a year later, musical director and conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra . In the course of the following ten years, the initially semi-professional orchestra performed around 100 works, including many by Kaufmann.

In 1955 he received an honorary doctorate in Spokane (Washington) . From 1957 to 1977, Kaufmann was a full professor of ethnomusicology at Indiana University Bloomington in the United States.

Walter Kaufmann was with Gertrude Kaufmann, b. Hermann, married, a daughter of Franz Kafka's sister Gabriele (called Elli, 1889–1942). The marriage resulted in a daughter born in Bombay. Kaufmann's second wife Freda, whom he married in Canada in 1952, is mentioned as a librettist in two of his operas.

effect

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra developed into a professional orchestra under Kaufmann's direction. He brought some musicians from Europe to Winnipeg as soloists. Kaufmann's compositional work is extraordinarily diverse, extensive and encompasses the entire range of classical genres. It includes influences from Indian music as well as tonal and atonal compositions. Yet it is rarely performed today. The majority of his works were not printed and only survived in the form of manuscripts.

During his stay in India, Kaufmann traveled all over India and China, where he collected ethnomusic material. In the 1960s and 1970s he wrote several publications on Indian and Chinese music history in the United States on the basis of his field research, which is still today "valuable reference sources in music-ethnological discourse". His best known works are The Ragas of North India from 1968 and The Ragas of South India from 1976. All of Kaufmann's works are written in English, except for Old India. Music history in pictures from 1981, which was the only one to appear in his German mother tongue.

Compositions (selection)

• The mutton brings it to light. Opera. Prague 1934
• Visages. Ballet in one act. Winnipeg 1950
• A parfait for Irene. Opera. Winnipeg 1952
• Sganarelle. Opera. Vancouver 1955
• The Scarlet Letter. Opera. Indiana 1962
• The Research. Opera. Indiana 1966
• A Hoosier's Tale. Opera. Indiana 1966
• Six symphonies in 1930, 1933, 1936, 1939, 1940, 1956
• Ten string quartets and three piano trios 1935–1946
• Chamber music, overtures, suites, including Madras Express 1948; 6 Indian Miniatures 1965
• Cantatas, songs, film music

Fonts (selection)

• Folk Songs of the Gond and Baiga. In: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 3, July 1941, pp. 280-288
• The Art-Music of Hindustan. 1944 (manuscript. Copy in the New York Public Library)
• The Songs of the Hill Maria, Jhoria Muria and Bastar Muria Gond Tribes. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 1960, pp. 115-128
• The Folksongs of Nepal. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 6, No. 2, May 1962, pp. 93-114
• Rasa, Rāga-Mālā and Performance Times in North Indian Ragas. (PDF; 2.2 MB) In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 9, No. 3, September 1965, pp. 272-291
• Musical Notations of the Orient: Notational Systems of Continental, East, South and Central Asia . Indiana University Humanities Series, No. 60. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1967
• The Mudrās in Sāmavedic Chant and Their Probable Relationship to the Go-on Hakase of the Shōmyō of Japan. In: Ethnomusicology , Vol. 11, No. 2, May 1967, pp. 161-169
• The Ragas of North India . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1968
• The Problem concerning a Chinese Ming Bronze. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 12, No. 2, May 1968, pp. 251-254
• Tibetan Buddhist Chant: Musical Notations and Interpretations of a Song Book by the Bkah Brgyud Pa and Sa Skya Pa Sects . Indiana University Humanities Series, No. 70. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1975
• Musical References in the Chinese Classics . Information Coordinators, Detroit 1976
• The Ragas of South India: A Catalog of Scalar Material . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1976
• Ancient India . Music history in pictures, Vol. 2. Music of antiquity, delivery 8. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1981
• Selected Musical Terms of Non-Western Cultures: A Notebook Glossary . Detroit Studies in Music Bibliography, No. 65. Harmonie Park Press, Warren (MI) 1990

literature

• Thomas L. Noblitt (Ed.): Music East and West: Essays in Honor of Walter Kaufmann. Pendragon Press, New York 1981, ISBN 978-0918728159
• William H. Rosar: Kaufmann, Walter. In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Vol. 13. Macmillan Publishers, London 2001, p. 423
• Agata Schindler: In exile on three continents. The composer and conductor Walter Kaufmann. In: Musicologica Austriaca 20 , 2001, pp. 169–192
• Rüdiger Schumacher: Merchant, Walter. In: Ludwig Finscher : Music in the past and present . Person Teil 9, Kassel 2003, Sp. 1558-1560
• Walter Kaufmann. In: Late Pandit Nikhil Ghosh (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Music of India. Saṅgīt Mahābhāratī. Vol. 3 (P-Z) Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2011, pp. 1044f

Web links

• Walter Kaufmann in the Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians from the Nazi Era (LexM)
• Walter Kaufmann Archive: Biography. Indiana University
• Walter Kaufmann Archive: Stage Music. Indiana University
• Walter Kaufmann (1907–1984). musica reanimata. Association for the rediscovery of Nazi persecuted composers and their works

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chandrima S. Bhattacharya: Hitler hand in advance of Hindi cinema. The Telegraph, Calcutta, January 16, 2006
2. ↑ Schumacher, Col. 1560