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.
Rudi Stephan | |
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Born | |
Died | 29 September 1915 | (aged 28)
Education | |
Occupation | Composer |
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]