Rudi Stephan
Rudi Stephan | |
|---|---|
| File:Rudi Stephan, 1930.jpg | |
| Born | 29 July 1887 |
| Died | 29 September 1915 (aged 28) |
| Education | |
| Occupation | Composer |
Rudi Stephan (29 July 1887 – 29 September 1915) was a German composer of great promise who was considered one of the leading talents of his generation.[1] He was killed in action during World War I.
Life
[edit | edit source]Stephan was born at Worms, Grand Duchy of Hesse, the son of the privy councillor and politician Karl Stephan who was also the head of the local Richard-Wagner-Verband.[2] Stephan became a composition pupil of Bernhard Sekles at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, and of Rudolf Louis in Munich, where he settled after completing his studies in 1908.[3]
He left only a few works: his liking for pointedly neutral titles along the lines of 'Music for ...' has caused him to be seen as a forerunner of the 'New Objectivity' of the post-war era, but his music is in fact in a hyper-expressive late-Romantic idiom which has more plausibly been seen by some as a kind of proto-Expressionism.[1] His father was able to finance the performance of his early works, which at first met with incomprehension, but the premiere of his 1912 Music for Orchestra in Worms was a major critical breakthrough.[2] He completed his only opera, Die ersten Menschen, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War.[3] It was eventually premiered in Frankfurt, five years after the composer had been killed in action at Chodaczków Wielki near Tarnopol on the Galician Front.[2]
His complete extant orchestral works were recorded by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oleg Caetani.[4]
List of works
[edit | edit source]- Opus 1 for Orchestra
- Liebeszauber for baritone and orchestra, after Hebbel (1907, rev. 1911)
- Music for Orchestra [No. 1] (1910)[8]
- Grotesque for violin and piano
- Music for Violin and Orchestra (1910, rev. 1913)
- Music for Seven Stringed Instruments (2 violins, viola, violoncello, doublebass, harp and piano) (1907–11; unfinished revision for piano quintet, 1914)[8]
- Music for Orchestra [No. 2] (1912, rev. 1913) [NB this work is often said to be a revision of the 1910 Music for Orchestra, but they are in fact unrelated]
- Die ersten Menschen (1909–14), opera after the erotic mystery-play by Otto Borngräber[8]
Legacy
[edit | edit source]In Worms a school was named Rudi-Stephan-Gymnasium.[9]
References
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Rudi Stephan at AllMusic
- Free scores by Rudi Stephan at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
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- 1887 births
- 1915 deaths
- 19th-century German composers
- 19th-century German male composers
- 20th-century German classical composers
- 20th-century German male musicians
- German military personnel killed in World War I
- German opera composers
- Hoch Conservatory alumni
- German male opera composers
- People from Rhenish Hesse
- People from Worms, Germany