Walter Kaufmann (composer)

Walter Kaufmann (1 April 1907 – 9 September 1984) was a composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, librettist and educator. Born in Karlsbad, Bohemia (at that time part of Austria-Hungary), he trained in Prague and Berlin before fleeing the Nazi persecution of Jews to work in Bombay until Indian Independence. He then moved to London, and Canada, before he settled to become a professor of musicology at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, Indiana, USA in 1957. In 1964, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Biography

Kaufmann was born in Karlovy Vary to Julius and Josefine Antonia. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin training under Franz Schreker and Curt Sachs between 1927 and 1930. He then studied in Prague under Gustav Becking and Paul Nettl (father of the musicologist Bruno Nettl). He graduated in 1934 with a dissertation on Gustav Mahler but refused a degree in protest of his ordinarius (=professor) Gustav Becking who was a Nazi supporter. He married Gerti (Gertrude) Hermann (d. 1972), a niece of Franz Kafka and the family fled Nazi Germany in 1934. His father died when the family reached the Czech border. He moved to India and worked as a director of music at the All India Radio in Bombay from 1937 to 1946. His contemporary John Foulds, known for banning the harmonium from Indian radio, worked in New Delhi.[1] He founded the Bombay Chamber Music Society along with others like Mehli Mehta (Kaufmann also taught the Mehli's son Zubin Mehta). He also researched Indian and Asian music, writing about them in journals.[2] He composed the signature tune for All India Radio in 1936.[3] During World War II he served in the British Navy and after the war he tried to return to Prague but settled in London and composed music for J. Arthur Rank Films in England from 1947 to 48. He then moved to the United States and taught at Halifax. On the recommendation of Sir Ernest MacMillan he became a conductor for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra from 1948 to 1956.[4] He married the pianist Freda Trepel in 1950. He then served as a professor of musicology at the University of Indiana from 1957 until his death in 1984 in Bloomington.[5][6][7]

Works

His music related books include:

  • Altindien (Musikgeschichte in Bildern, Bd. 2 ; Musik des Alterums, Lfg. 8. Leipzig, Deutscher Verlag fur Musik, 1981)
  • Musical Notations of the Orient: Notational Systems of Continental, East, South and Central Asia (Indiana University Humanities Series, no. 60. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1967)
  • Musical References in the Chinese Classics (Detroit, Information Coordinators, 1976)
  • The Ragas of North India (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1968)
  • The Ragas of South India: A Catalogue of Scalar Material (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1976)
  • Selected Musical Terms of Non-Western Cultures: A Notebook-Glossary (Detroit Studies in Music Bibliography, no. 65. Warren, MI, Harmonie Park Press, 1990)
  • Tibetan Buddhist Chant: Musical Notations and Interpretations of a Song Book by the Bkah Brgyud Pa and Sa Skya Pa Sects (Translated by T. Norbu. Indiana University Humanities Series, no. 70. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1975)

He also published a number of research papers and record reviews especially in ethnomusicology.[8][9] After coming in contact with Verrier Elwin, he studied Gond music.[10]

He composed several operas including Der grosse Dorin (1932), Esther (1931–32), Die weisse Gottin (1933), Anasuya, radio opera (Bombay, Oct. I, 1938) The Scarlet Letter, which was very well received at its premiere by the Opera Department of the Indiana University School of Music in the early 1960s.

References
  1. Lelyveld, David (1994). "Upon the Subdominant: Administering Music on All-India Radio". Social Text (39): 111–127. doi:10.2307/466366. ISSN 0164-2472.
  2. Kaufmann, Walter (1965). "Rasa, Rāga-Mālā and Performance Times in North Indian Rāgas". Ethnomusicology. 9 (3): 272–291. doi:10.2307/850238. ISSN 0014-1836.
  3. "Remembering the Jewish refugee who composed the All India Radio caller tune". Scroll.in. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  4. Gaub, Albrecht (2014-03-13). "Walter Kaufmann and the Winnipeg Ballet: A Fruitful Collaboration Soon Forgotten". Les Cahiers de la Société québécoise de recherche en musique. 14 (2): 89–99. doi:10.7202/1023743ar. ISSN 1929-7394.
  5. Helmer, Paul (2014). Growing with Canada: The emigre Tradition in Canadian Music. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. p. 267.
  6. Maley, S. Roy (2013). "Kaufmann, Walter". l'Encyclopédie Canadienne. Historica Canada.
  7. Memorial Resolution. Distinguished professor emeritus Walter Kaufman (April 1, 1907 - September 9, 1984) by Thomas Noblitt. 19 February, 1985
  8. Kaufmann, Walter (1961). "The Musical Instruments of the Hill Maria, Jhoria, and Bastar Muria Gond Tribes". Ethnomusicology. 5 (1): 1–9. doi:10.2307/924303. ISSN 0014-1836.
  9. Kaufmann, Walter (1967). "The Mudrās in Sāmavedic Chant and Their Probable Relationship to the Go-on Hakase of the Shōmyō of Japan". Ethnomusicology. 11 (2): 161–169. doi:10.2307/849815. ISSN 0014-1836.
  10. Kaufmann, Walter (1941). "Folk-Songs of the Gond and Baiga". The Musical Quarterly. 27 (3): 280–288. ISSN 0027-4631.


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