Hugo Kaun

Hugo Wilhelm Ludwig Kaun ( born March 21, 1863 in Berlin, † April 2, 1932 ) was a German composer, conductor and music educator. His works have enjoyed after 1900, the highest recognition in Germany and America. After his death, they were patronized by the President of the National Socialist Reich Chamber of Music Peter Raabe.

Life and work

His father Johann Ludwig Kaun (1830-1886) was a textile manufacturer from Konitz in West Prussia. His mother Emma Albertine Wilhelmine was born a little herb ( 1841-1926 ). From Hugo Kaun marriage to Clara Friedrich (1865-1954) five children: Bernard, Martha, Margaret, Mary and Ella. In 1876 joined the study of music at the school, Hugo Kaun on the Berlin - Andreas Real Gymnasium. He received his first musical education in his hometown Berlin: study of music, piano with Oscar Raif, composition with Professor Friedrich Kiel, which was founded in 1869 the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin, from 1879 to exclusion from school due to repeated truancy, to do the military service, and then setting up a music publishing company, 1887 departure to the United States of America. In Chicago Kaun studied at the German - American music theorist Bernhard Ziehn, in which Wilhelm Middelschulte got his armor. Later he taught, as well Middelschulte, at the Conservatory. Activities as a music teacher, conductor and composer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, among other things, O., and as the founder and conductor of the Milwaukee Liederkranz, head of the feast days of the Northwest Sängerbund until 1901., Under the pseudonym Ferdinand Bold wrote Kaun in difficult economic times also upscale entertainment music. His friend Theodore Thomas, founder and conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, made ​​in America for the performance of his three symphonies. 1900 return to Berlin residing in the Schwerinstraße 25 ( on March 20, 1937 Renamed Kaunstrasse ) in Zehlendorf. The family followed two years later. Up to this point Kaun wrote his Opus 49. After he was accepted as a teacher at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin, was in 1912 appointed professor. From 1922 to 1932 Kaun worked as a teacher of composition at the Klindworth - Scharwenka Conservatory. He also continued his extensive teaching career in private. Studied composition with him were Heinrich Kaminski, Hans Uldall, Walter Gronostay, Max Donisch, Walter Morse Rummel, and his youngest son Bernhard Kaun.

Hugo Kaun is considered modern late romantics who felt himself and his music as " German ". The contemporary critic concurred with him. In many of his works, he applied the theory of harmony principles of his teacher Bernhard Ziehn, namely the symmetrical reversal, consistently. He saw himself Max Reger and Hans Pfitzner related parties. The music of Arnold Schoenberg, he looked the other hand disparagingly. From 1920 Kaun style of composition changes significantly; these late works represent a sound and style symbiosis of Wagner's expressiveness on the one hand and elements of Impressionism on the other hand represents the fact that Kaun music was played after his death in the Third Reich very often, is solely attributable to the unfortunate fact that he said to Peter Raabe, later head of the Reich Music Chamber and dedicatee of his Symphony No. 2, was good friends. So often sounded his works, especially the female choir a cappella and operas, even until the end of the 30s. An intense, musicological work-up of the complete works of Kaun is still pending.

He is buried in the cemetery in Berlin -Zehlendorf.

Works (selection)

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