Otto Taubmann (8 March 1859 – 4 July 1929) was a German composer and conductor.
Life
Born in Hamburg, Taubmann was initially a merchant, studied piano, violoncello and composition in Dresden from 1879 to 1882 and made study trips to Paris and Vienna. He worked as a conductor for several years and was the owner of the Freudenberg Conservatory in Wiesbaden from 1886 to 1889. From 1895, he lived in Berlin, first as a theory teacher and music critic (among others for the Berliner Börsen-Courier) and from 1920 to 1925 he was a composition teacher at the Berlin University of the Arts.[1]
Taubmann belonged to the music section of the Prussian Academy of Arts from 1917. His students at the academy included Ludwig Roselius and Walter Draeger among others.[2]
Taubmann's compositional output includes sacred and stage music in addition to Lieder and choral works. In addition to psalm settings and the choral drama Sängerweihe published in 1904 after a libretto by Christian von Ehrenfels, the opera Porzia after Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice was premiered in 1916. Another opera entitled Die missbrauchten Liebesbriefe remained a fragment.
In addition to his own compositions, Taubmann published a large number of arrangements of pieces by other composers, including Heinrich Schütz, Richard Strauss, Jean Sibelius and Antonín Dvořák. The arrangement of his Romance in C op. 42, written in 1909 and republished in 2007, was called "Excellent" by the otherwise very critical Sibelius in a letter to the publisher.[3]
Occasionally, Taubmann used the pseudonym Nambuat.
Taubmann died in Berlin at the age of 70. He found his final resting place on the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery.
Compositions
- Streichquartett a-Moll, 1890
- Eine Deutsche Messe for soli, choir, orchestra and organ, 1899
- Sängerweihe, Choral drama, world premiere 25 November 1904 in Elberfeld
- Und ich sah, Lied, op. 26
- Tauwetter, Choral piece
- Kampf und Friede, Cantata
- Porzia, Opera, premiere 15 November 1916 in Frankfurt.[4][5]
- Sang an die Heimat, Symphony
- Die missbrauchten Liebesbriefe, Opera fragment after Gottfried Keller
Further reading
- Fabian Kolb: In Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Personal part in 17 volumes. Volume 13
- Franz Stieger: Opernlexikon, part II: Komponisten, Tutzing 1977
References
- ↑ Frank-Altmann: Kurzgefasstes Tonkünstler-Lexikon. Neudruck der Ausgabe von 1936. Wilhelmshaven 1971, p. 624
- ↑ vgl. Zeitschrift Berliner Leben, 10th edition (1905), p. 13.
- ↑ vgl. Sibelius, Jean: Romanze in C op. 42, foreword to Wiederveröffentlichung, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 2007
- ↑ Porzia Oper in 3 Aufz. nach Shakespeares Kaufmann von Venedig on WorldCat
- ↑ Taubmann on Operone.de
External links
- Literature by and about Otto Taubmann in the German National Library catalogue
- Otto Taubmann discography at Discogs
- Otto Taubman on Klassika.