Paul Graener

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Biographical entry for Paul Graener from New Grove:

Graener, Paul
(b Berlin, 11 Jan 1872; d Salzburg, 13 Nov 1944). German composer and conductor. He was a self-taught musician who received some formal instruction in composition from Albert Becker at the Veit Conservatory in Berlin. Much of his practical experience was gained working as a Kapellmeister in Bremerhaven, Königsberg and Berlin. In 1896 he settled in London where for a time he was conductor of the orchestra at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. When his contract was terminated after a conflict with the director, he remained in England teaching privately and secured a position at the RAM. He returned to the Continent in 1908 and taught composition at the Neues Konservatorium in Vienna. From 1910 to 1913 he directed the Salzburg Mozarteum, and he spent the next seven years teaching in several German cities. In 1920 he succeeded Reger as professor of composition at the Leipzig Conservatory, a position he occupied for five years. In 1930 he moved to Berlin where he directed the Stern Conservatory, and four years later held masterclasses in composition at the Akademie der Künste. In 1932 he became active in the Berlin section of Rosenberg's Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur. Joining the Nazi party in 1933, he was appointed vice-president of the Reichsmusikkammer by Goebbels, and replaced Strauss as director of the composers' division in the same organization in 1935.

Graener attained technical fluency in most areas of composition, though he never established an individual identity in the manner of his immediate contemporaries Strauss, Pfitzner and Reger. A staunch traditionalist, he remained opposed to modernism, and was generally overlooked during the Weimar Republic until the late 1920s, when his mystical opera Hanneles Himmelfahrt (1927) was embraced by conservative music critics and administrators as a healthy alternative to then popular Zeitoper. Of his many orchestral works, the suite Die Flöte von Sanssouci became well known and was performed by such conductors as Toscanini.

Graener's fortunes changed dramatically after the Nazis came to power. Elevated to a position of some influence, he was able to secure more frequent performances of his compositions, and received a prestigious commission from the Berlin Staatsoper for his opera Der Prinz von Homburg (1935). The work, however, proved to be fatally flawed in terms of its dramatic and psychological impact, and soon disappeared from the repertory. This failure undoubtedly undermined Graener's prestige, and although he remained loyal to the regime for the rest of his life, his later work was greeted more with respect than genuine enthusiasm.