Robert Kahn (composer)
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Robert Kahn (21 July 1865 – 29 May 1951) was a German composer, pianist, and music teacher.
Life[]
Kahn was born in Mannheim, the second son of Bernhard Kahn[1] and Emma Eberstadt. One of his seven siblings was the wealthy financier Otto Kahn whose son Roger Wolfe Kahn was a successful jazz musician, composer and aviator. His parents belonged to a distinguished German-Jewish family of bankers and merchants. In 1882, Kahn entered the Königlichen Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he studied for the next three years. Between 1885 and 1886, he continued his musical education under the tutelage of Josef Rheinberger in Munich. On a visit to Vienna the following year, Kahn met and befriended composer Johannes Brahms, who offered to make Kahn his pupil.[2] Although Kahn declined the invitation out of diffidence, Brahms's music would exert a profound influence on his compositional style throughout his career.
After finishing his military service, Kahn worked as a freelance composer in Berlin until 1890. For the next three years he was employed as a Korrepetitor (rehearsal pianist) at the Stadttheater in Leipzig. Having been appointed lecturer in composition at his alma mater in 1894, Kahn went on to train some of the best-known musicians of the 20th century. His students include the pianists Arthur Rubinstein and Wilhelm Kempff, the conductor Ferdinand Leitner, the composers Nikos Skalkottas and Günter Raphael, and the violinist .
While Kahn was composing and teaching in Berlin he also was active as chamber musician and Lied accompanist in concert with leading soloists and singers of his time, ranging from Joseph Joachim and Richard Mühlfeld to Adolf Busch, from Johann Messchaert to Ilona Durigo and Emmy Destinn.
In 1916, Kahn was elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, a membership he held until 1934 when the Nazi regime ordered him to resign because he was Jewish. The Nazis also prohibited the publication and performance of his music. This drove him to leave Germany for England in 1938, where he spent the last years of his life in relative obscurity but composing prolifically, which resulted in a collection of piano music with more than 1,000 still unpublished pieces. He died in Biddenden, Kent. Kahn and his music were almost entirely forgotten after World War II, but are being rediscovered by musicians and audiences, as is the case of many other composers of "degenerate music" persecuted by the Nazis.
Works[]
Kahn composed a vast quantity of chamber music, writing in an intimate, lyrical style that is reminiscent of Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. Like his friend Brahms, Kahn eschewed the emotional extravagance of the late Romantics. Kahn's output includes two piano quintets (besides the Quintet in C minor, Op. 54 there is a Quintet in D Major from 1926), two string quartets, three piano quartets, four piano trios, three violin sonatas, two cello sonatas, several choral pieces, and numerous lieder. His only purely instrumental orchestral works were a serenade Aus der Jugendzeit ("From Youth") (1890) and a Konzertstück for piano and orchestra in E flat minor, Op. 74 (1920).
Kahn was often commissioned to create works for some of the finest musicians of the early decades of the 20th century up to the young Adolf Busch with whom Kahn gave the first performance of his Suite, Op. 69 for violin and piano. His first Violin Sonata in G minor was dedicated to Joseph Joachim who asked to perform it when Kahn was still a young student in Berlin, and even Clara Schumann mentioned this sonata in her diary. The second Violin Sonata, in A minor, Op. 26 (1897) was dedicated to Joachim, while the String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 8 (1889) was first performed by the Joachim Quartet. The second string quartet was premièred by the Klingler Quartet, the successor of the Joachim Quartet. Finally his Clarinet Trio, Op. 45 was dedicated to and performed by the famous clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld who also inspired Brahms's late chamber compositions. Hans von Bülow conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the world première of Kahn's orchestral serenade.
Bibliography[]
- Helmuth Rilling: "From Johannes Brahms to Robert Kahn: 1887", in: Bach, VI, 4, October 1975, p. 20-22.
- and Eric Levi: "Kahn, Robert", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001).
See also[]
References[]
- ^ de:Bernhard Kahn
- ^ see: Steffen Fahl, Tradition der Natürlichkeit, Studioverlag Sinzig, 1998 page 11-12
External links[]
- Website about life and Music of Robert Kahn
- LexM Article (in german): Robert Kahn (by Steffen Fahl 2009)
- Lyrics of selected songs
- Robert Kahn's Chamber Music Soundbites and discussion of several works
- Free scores by Robert Kahn (composer) at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
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- 1865 births
- 1951 deaths
- 19th-century German musicians
- 19th-century German male musicians
- 20th-century British musicians
- 20th-century classical composers
- 20th-century German composers
- 20th-century German male musicians
- German classical composers
- German classical pianists
- German male classical composers
- German male pianists
- German Romantic composers
- Jewish classical composers
- Jewish classical pianists
- Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom
- Male classical pianists
- People from Biddenden
- Musicians from Mannheim
- People from the Grand Duchy of Baden