Karl Amadeus Hartmann
| Karl Amadeus Hartmann | |
|---|---|
| Born |
2 August 1905 Munich |
| Died | 5 December 1963 (aged 58) Munich |
| Education | Munich Academy |
| Occupation | Classical composer |
Karl Amadeus Hartmann (2 August 1905 – 5 December 1963) was a German composer. Some have lauded him as the greatest German symphonist of the 20th century,</ref>http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/050127-NL-hartmann.html although he is now largely overlooked, particularly in English-speaking countries.
Born in Munich, well known there for his flower paintings, the son of Friedrich Richard Hartmann, and the youngest of four brothers of whom the elder three also became painters, Hartmann was himself torn, early in his career, between music and the visual arts. He was much affected in his early political development by the events of the unsuccessful Workers’ Revolution in Bavaria that followed the collapse of the German empire at the end of World War I (see Bavarian Soviet Republic). He remained an idealistic socialist for the rest of his life.
At the Munich Academy in the 1920s, Hartmann studied with Joseph Haas, a pupil of Max Reger, and later he received intellectual stimulus and encouragement from the conductor Hermann Scherchen, an ally of the Schoenberg school, with whom he had a nearly lifelong mentor-protégé relationship. He voluntarily withdrew completely from musical life in Germany during the Nazi era, while remaining in Germany, and refused to allow his works to be played there. An early symphonic poem, Miserae (1933–1934, first performed in Prague, 1935) was condemned by the Nazi regime; but his work continued to be performed, and his fame grew, abroad.
During World War II, though already an experienced composer, Hartmann submitted to a course of private tuition in Vienna by Schoenberg’s pupil Anton Webern (with whom he often disagreed on a personal and political level). Although stylistically their music had little in common, he clearly felt that he needed, and benefitted from, Webern’s acute perfectionism.
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