Walter Kaufmann (composer)

Walter Kaufmann ( born April 1, 1907 in Carlsbad, † September 9th, 1984 in Bloomington, Indiana ) was a German musicologist, composer and conductor who has focused particularly on the history of Indian and also Chinese music.

Life

Walter Kaufmann was the son of Julius Kaufmann ( † 1938) and Josephine Kaufmann ( † 1956), both were Jews. Kaufmann received after the conclusion of the Carlsbad High School first musical training with his uncle, the composer and music historian Moritz Kaufmann ( * 1871, † around 1942 in the concentration camp Treblinka ), and later in Prague from the composer 's Fidelio F. Finke and violinist Willy Schweyda. He then studied for a short time at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik at Curt Sachs musicology and composition with Franz Schreker. From 1927 he continued his studies at the Charles University in Prague continues with Gustav Becking and Paul Nettl. In the following years he worked as a conductor in Prague and Eger (now Cheb) successfully, as in Potsdam at the UFA and the Barnowsky stages in Berlin. Temporarily he was assistant conductor Bruno Walter at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He collaborated with composer Ralph Benatzky and conducted his works. At the same time resulted in a number of orchestras in Berlin and Czechoslovakia on his own works. Between 1932 and 1934 could also be heard as a pianist at the Prague Radio merchant. His dissertation was a merchant filed in Prague, but they pulled out for political reasons in 1934, a year after the Nazi seizure of power back.

This year, Kaufmann went to India to study Indian music there. Businessman financed the trip by selling the rights of his performance in 1935, first performed in Carlsbad operetta The White Goddess. For him as a Jew, it was no longer possible to return as scheduled to its previous sites of action. In Bombay (now Mumbai), he was employed by the state radio station All India Radio. As a result of the policy to be extended stay in India for twelve years and as he headed from 1938 to 1946 the Department of European classical music radio station. In addition to his work at All India Radio Kaufmann composed numerous works; his Piano Concerto of 1937, this year in Prague Radio to Original. Until then its previous chamber music and orchestral works were still sent in Prague. He also composed the signature tune of All India Radio, which became known in 1971 by Carla Bley's Escalator Over the Hill to the international jazz audience.

Shortly after 1933 the Nazis began to abuse the film studios of UFA for their national propaganda. Among the group of filmmakers, which then came to Bombay in 1934 were film director Franz Osten, who turned from 1935 Bollywood movies, and a friend of Franz Kafka writer Wilhelm Haas, the latter. Instigation of Kaufmann Haas, merchant and the Indian producer Mohan Bhavnani worked together on the film Premnagar which was released in 1940. Haas was responsible for the screenplay and merchant for the score. Kaufmann founded the Chamber Music Club Bombay Chamber Society, who performed his compositions, in which he played the piano and viola. The members of the group included the conductor and violinist Mehli Mehta (1908-2002), father of the conductor Zubin Mehta.

Kaufmann had the intention to return to Prague in 1945, but this was not possible because his mother's fortune had been confiscated after the war and they had to emigrate to Canada in 1948. Instead, he went from Bombay to London in 1946, where he received a few jobs as a conductor at the BBC. He promised himself in Canada where he was from 1947 head of the piano department at the Halifax Conservatory of Music in Halifax and a year later the musical director and conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra More success. Over the next ten years, which led initially semi-professional orchestra approximately 100 works on, including many from merchant.

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 until 1946 with Gertrude merchant, born Hermann, married a daughter of Franz Kafka's sister Gabriele ( called Elli, 1889-1942 ). The marriage showed a Bombay-born daughter. Kaufmann's second wife, Freda, whom he married in Canada in 1952, is mentioned in two of his operas as a librettist.

Effect

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra developed under Kaufmann's line to a professional ensemble. He undertook a number of musicians from Europe to Winnipeg as soloists. Kaufmann's work as a composer is exceptionally versatile, comprehensive and covers the entire range of classic genres. It includes influences from Indian music as well as tonal and atonal styles of composition. Nevertheless, it is hardly performed today. The majority of his works were not printed and preserved only in the form of manuscripts.

During his stay in India Kaufmann undertook journeys throughout India and to China, where he collected music ethnological material. In the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote in the United States, some publications on the Indian and Chinese music history, based on his field research, today represent the " valuable reference sources in the ethnomusicological discourse ". His best known works are The Ragas of North India from 1968 and The Ragas of South India in 1976. Businessman are all works written in English, except for Altin diene. Music History in pictures from 1981, published as The only in his native German.

Compositions (selection )

• The Hammel 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 the years 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

Writings (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 ( Manuskript. copy in the New York Public Library)
• The Songs of the Hill Maria, Muria and Bastar Muria Gond Jhoria Tribes. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol 4, No. 3, September 1960, pp. 115-128
• The Folk Songs of Nepal. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol 6, No. 2 May 1962, pp. 93-114
• Rasa, Raga -Mala and Performance Times in North Indian ragas. (PDF, 2.2 MB): 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 mudras 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, p 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 Pa Skya 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 Catalogue of Scalar Material. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1976
• Altin diene. Music History in Pictures, Vol 2 music of antiquity, Delivery 8 German VEB 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