Karol Rathaus
Karol Rathaus (Karl Leonhard Bruno Rathaus; also Leonhard Bruno; * 16 September 1895 in Tarnopol (Galicia), Austro-Hungary, today Ukraine; † 21 November 1954 in Flushing/New York City) was a German-Austrian Jewish composer who immigrated to the US via Berlin, Paris, and London, escaping the rise of Nazism in Germany.
Life
Rathaus began composing at an early age, beginning his studies in 1913/1914 at the Academy of Performing Arts and Music in Vienna. His studies were interrupted by his military service during the First World War 1918/1919. As one of the favorite pupils of Franz Schreker Rathaus followed him to the Academy of Music in Berlin, where he continued to study music and composition. After graduation, Rathaus accepted the position of a teacher of composition and music theory at the Berlin University of the Arts. Rathaus lived in Berlin from 1922-1932, during which time his first compositions caused a sensation and achieved great success.[1]
After his 1930 opera Fremde Erde, Rathaus created film music and was among the artistically outstanding film composers in Germany before 1933. He wrote the music for three films by Fyodor Ozeps. In 1933 he went to Paris and lived in London from 1934 to 1938, before he finally settled in New York.
In 1940 he became a professor of composition at Queens College. In this position he achieved prestige and popularity. In addition, he was also successful as a composer, writing many commissioned works and several film scores. He died in 1954 in New York. Handwritten manuscripts, published works, and correspondence to and from Rathaus are available for research at the Queens College Special Collections and Archives.
His compositional output includes mostly instrumental works: symphonies, orchestral works, serenades, sonatas and ballets. He saw his compositions in the tradition of Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky and his teacher Franz Schreker.
In the Third Reich, his compositions were classified as "degenerate art" and assigned a performance ban. He is now considered one of the many great 'composers in exile'.[2]
Rathaus was married to Gerta and had a son named Bernt. As of 2016, a documentary film is being made about Rathaus in exile.
Selected filmography
- The Trunks of Mr. O.F. (1931)
- Here's Berlin (1932)
External links
- Karol Rathaus Collection Finding Aid, Queens College Special Collections and Archives
- Karol Rathaus—An American Composer of Polish Origin... (Polish Music Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, Summer 2003, article by Martin Schüssler)
- Catalog Record at the German National Library (D-NB)
- Karol Rathaus at IMDb
References
- ^ Schwarz, Boris (1955). "Karol Rathaus". The Musical Quarterly. 41 (4): 481–495. doi:10.1093/mq/xli.4.481. JSTOR 739972.
- ^ Guzy-Pasiak, Jolanta (2011). "Karol Rathaus, the Transplanted Composer" (PDF). Musicology Today: Emigre Composers. 8: 163–177. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
- Schwarz, Boris. “Karol Rathaus.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 4, 1955, pp. 481–495. www.jstor.org/stable/739972.
- Guzy-Pasiak, Jolanta. "Karol Rathaus, the Transplanted Composer." Musicology Today: Émigré Composers 8 (2011): 163-77.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
- Austrian Jews
- Austrian male composers
- Austrian composers
- People from Ternopil
- Jewish American composers
- German military personnel of World War I
- University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna alumni
- German film score composers
- Male film score composers
- German male composers
- Queens College, City University of New York faculty
- Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
- 1895 births
- 1954 deaths
- Pupils of Franz Schreker
- 20th-century American composers
- 20th-century German musicians