Paul Dessau

For the English artist, see Paul Lucien Dessau.
Paul Dessau

Kurt Hager, Ruth Berghaus, Werner Rackwitz, Paul Dessau and Hans-Joachim Hoffmann
Born (1894-12-19)19 December 1894
Hamburg, German Empire
Died 28 June 1979(1979-06-28) (aged 84)
Königs Wusterhausen, GDR
Nationality German
Occupation Composer and Conductor
Spouse(s) Ruth Berghaus
Children Maxim Dessau

Paul Dessau (19 December 1894 – 28 June 1979) was a German composer and conductor.

Biography

Dessau was born in Hamburg into a musical family. His grandfather, Moses Berend Dessau, was a cantor in the Hamburg synagogue (Hennenberg 2001); his uncle, Professor Bernhard Dessau, was Konzertmeister (English: leader, lead violinist, or concertmaster) at the Royal Opera House, Unter den Linden ; his cousin, Max Winterfeld, became generally known under the name Jean Gilbert as a composer of operettas (Hennenberg 2001); and his second cousin, Robert Gerson Muller-Hartmann, was a composer and collaborator with Ralph Vaughan Williams.

From 1909 he majored in violin, studying under Florian Zajic at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin. In 1912 he became répétiteur at the City Theatre (Stadttheater) in Hamburg. There he studied the work of the conductors Felix Weingartner and Arthur Nikisch and took classes in composition from Max Julius Loewengard. He was second Kapellmeister at the Tivoli Theatre in Bremen in 1914 before being drafted for military service in 1915 (Hennenberg 2001).

After World War I he became conductor at the Intimate Theatre (Kammerspiele), Hamburg, and was répétiteur and later Kapellmeister at the opera house in Cologne under Otto Klemperer between 1919 and 1923. In 1923 he became Kapellmeister in Mainz and from 1925 Principal Kapellmeister at the Städtische Oper Berlin under Bruno Walter (Hennenberg 2001).

In 1933 Dessau emigrated to France, and 1939 moved further to the United States, where initially he lived in New York before moving to Hollywood in 1943 (Hennenberg 2001). Dessau returned to Germany with his second wife, the writer Elisabeth Hauptmann, and settled in East Berlin in 1948.

Dessau's grave in Berlin

Starting in 1952, he taught at the Public Drama School (Staatliche Schauspielschule) in Berlin-Oberschöneweide where he was appointed to a professorship in 1959. He became a member of the DDR Academy of Arts, Berlin in 1952 and was vice-president of this institution between 1957 and 1962. He taught many master classes, his pupils including Friedrich Goldmann, Reiner Bredemeyer, Jörg Herchet, Hans-Karsten Raecke, Friedrich Schenker, Luca Lombardi and Karl Ottomar Treibmann.

From 1954 he was married to the choreographer and director Ruth Berghaus. Their son Maxim Dessau (b. 1954) is a film director.

Dessau died on 28 June 1979 at the age of 84, in the then East German city of Königs Wusterhausen, on the outskirts of Berlin.

Works

Dessau composed operas, scenic plays, incidental music, ballets, symphonies and other works for orchestra, and pieces for solo instruments as well as vocal music. From the 1920s on, he was fascinated by film music. He composed music for early movies of Walt Disney, as well as background music for silent pictures and early German films. While in exile in Paris he wrote the oratorio Hagadah shel Pessach after a libretto by Max Brod. In the 1950s in collaboration with Bertolt Brecht he focused on the musical theatre. During that time several of his operas were produced. He also wrote Gebrauchsmusik (utility music) for the propaganda of the German Democratic Republic. At the same time he lobbied for the musical avant-garde (e.g. Witold Lutosławski, Alfred Schnittke, Boris Blacher, Hans Werner Henze and Luigi Nono).

Operas

Incidental music

Film music

Works for choir

Songs

Other compositions

Awards

Sources

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