Otto Taubmann

Otto Taubmann, 1905.

Otto Taubmann (8 March 1859 – 4 July 1929) was a German composer and conductor.

Life

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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

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  • 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

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References

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  1. ^ Frank-Altmann: Kurzgefasstes Tonkünstler-Lexikon. Neudruck der Ausgabe von 1936. Wilhelmshaven 1971, p. 624
  2. ^ vgl. Zeitschrift Berliner Leben, 10th edition (1905), p. 13.
  3. ^ vgl. Sibelius, Jean: Romanze in C op. 42, foreword to Wiederveröffentlichung, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 2007
  4. ^ Porzia Oper in 3 Aufz. nach Shakespeares Kaufmann von Venedig on WorldCat
  5. ^ Taubmann on Operone.de
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