Biography
Walter Braunfels ranked among the many German musicians whose careers flourished during the 1920s and early 1930s yet suffered abrupt eclipse through circumstances unrelated to either his talent or his output. That eclipse persisted long after his passing in 1954 and only began to lift near the close of the twentieth century.
He entered the world on December 19, 1882, in Frankfurt, the offspring of an affluent household steeped in the arts; his mother, a great-niece of Louis Spohr, provided his earliest instruction. Although he attended the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, law and economics at Munich also occupied his late teenage years. A performance of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde led by Felix Mottl ultimately decided him in favor of music as a vocation. He pursued piano studies with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna and took composition lessons in Munich from Mottl and Ludwig Thuille. Among established masters, Berlioz exerted the deepest sway on his imagination, an influence reinforced by the many concert and stage performances Mottl presented. Braunfels’s keyboard proficiency alone secured steady work from adolescence onward, yet he also participated in other musical spheres. In the years immediately following World War I his compositions—daring in several respects while remaining sufficiently melodic to retain earlier listeners—earned both critical praise and public favor across Germany. The opera Die Vögel, drawn from Aristophanes’ The Birds and first staged in Munich under Bruno Walter in 1920, constituted his greatest triumph; Alfred Einstein likened it to Pfitzner’s Palestrina and Wagner’s Meistersinger. His second opera, Don Gil von den grünen Hosen, completed in 1923, likewise prospered after its premiere under Hans Knappertsbusch and enjoyed repeated productions throughout German-speaking theaters during the decade. The Te Deum, heard in Cologne, prompted Mayor Konrad Adenauer to invite Braunfels to found the city’s Academy of Music in partnership with Hermann Abendroth.
The same qualities that had endeared his music to Weimar audiences, together with choices forced upon him in the early twenties, terminated his public activity once the subsequent decade arrived. Although one branch of his ancestry was Jewish, Braunfels considered himself—and indeed remained—a devout Catholic; this conviction alone generated his instinctive opposition to the National Socialist Party and placed him at odds, inside musical circles, with those who joined it. In addition, as one of Germany’s most promising composers of the period, he had been approached in the early twenties to supply an anthem for the party and had refused, reportedly with notable force. Such positions ensured permanent disfavor, and in 1933 his works, once deemed acceptable enough to warrant the earlier request, were prohibited from public performance.
Braunfels relinquished his Cologne post yet stayed inside Germany, neither incarcerated nor free, effectively confined to internal exile throughout the Hitler era. Withdrawal from musical life scarcely disturbed his private or creative existence, for he never stopped composing. After the regime’s collapse, and amid Germany’s initial reconstruction, he stood among the country’s few major resident musicians untainted by prior associations. The new democratic government therefore viewed him as indispensable to the revival of national cultural institutions. He returned to the Cologne Academy of Music in autumn 1945 at official urging and eventually served as its president. Nevertheless, his compositions failed to engage audiences in 1950s Germany; by the time of his death on March 19, 1954, he had already spent decades outside the creative spotlight. That obscurity only deepened after he was gone. Not until the late 1980s, when Germany undertook a systematic recovery of its suppressed cultural heritage and revived pieces once labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis, did his standing as a composer reemerge. In particular, Die Vögel reentered opera houses worldwide and received a complete recording in 1996, seventy-six years after its premiere.
He entered the world on December 19, 1882, in Frankfurt, the offspring of an affluent household steeped in the arts; his mother, a great-niece of Louis Spohr, provided his earliest instruction. Although he attended the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, law and economics at Munich also occupied his late teenage years. A performance of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde led by Felix Mottl ultimately decided him in favor of music as a vocation. He pursued piano studies with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna and took composition lessons in Munich from Mottl and Ludwig Thuille. Among established masters, Berlioz exerted the deepest sway on his imagination, an influence reinforced by the many concert and stage performances Mottl presented. Braunfels’s keyboard proficiency alone secured steady work from adolescence onward, yet he also participated in other musical spheres. In the years immediately following World War I his compositions—daring in several respects while remaining sufficiently melodic to retain earlier listeners—earned both critical praise and public favor across Germany. The opera Die Vögel, drawn from Aristophanes’ The Birds and first staged in Munich under Bruno Walter in 1920, constituted his greatest triumph; Alfred Einstein likened it to Pfitzner’s Palestrina and Wagner’s Meistersinger. His second opera, Don Gil von den grünen Hosen, completed in 1923, likewise prospered after its premiere under Hans Knappertsbusch and enjoyed repeated productions throughout German-speaking theaters during the decade. The Te Deum, heard in Cologne, prompted Mayor Konrad Adenauer to invite Braunfels to found the city’s Academy of Music in partnership with Hermann Abendroth.
The same qualities that had endeared his music to Weimar audiences, together with choices forced upon him in the early twenties, terminated his public activity once the subsequent decade arrived. Although one branch of his ancestry was Jewish, Braunfels considered himself—and indeed remained—a devout Catholic; this conviction alone generated his instinctive opposition to the National Socialist Party and placed him at odds, inside musical circles, with those who joined it. In addition, as one of Germany’s most promising composers of the period, he had been approached in the early twenties to supply an anthem for the party and had refused, reportedly with notable force. Such positions ensured permanent disfavor, and in 1933 his works, once deemed acceptable enough to warrant the earlier request, were prohibited from public performance.
Braunfels relinquished his Cologne post yet stayed inside Germany, neither incarcerated nor free, effectively confined to internal exile throughout the Hitler era. Withdrawal from musical life scarcely disturbed his private or creative existence, for he never stopped composing. After the regime’s collapse, and amid Germany’s initial reconstruction, he stood among the country’s few major resident musicians untainted by prior associations. The new democratic government therefore viewed him as indispensable to the revival of national cultural institutions. He returned to the Cologne Academy of Music in autumn 1945 at official urging and eventually served as its president. Nevertheless, his compositions failed to engage audiences in 1950s Germany; by the time of his death on March 19, 1954, he had already spent decades outside the creative spotlight. That obscurity only deepened after he was gone. Not until the late 1980s, when Germany undertook a systematic recovery of its suppressed cultural heritage and revived pieces once labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis, did his standing as a composer reemerge. In particular, Die Vögel reentered opera houses worldwide and received a complete recording in 1996, seventy-six years after its premiere.
Albums
