Detlef Kraus (30 November 1919 – 7 January 2008) was a German pianist. He was an internationally known interpreter of the music of
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
.
Born in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
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, Kraus gave his first concert at the age of 16, playing ''
The Well-Tempered Clavier
''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time, ''clavier'', meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of in ...
'' of
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
. His later emphasis was on Brahms, together with conductors like
Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay (; 9 August 1914 – 20 February 1963) was a Hungarian conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen.
Biography
Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, E ...
,
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (born Rafael Frühbeck; 15 September 1933 – 11 June 2014) was a Spanish conductor and composer. Frühbeck was born in Burgos, Spain to a family of German ancestry. He first took up conducting while on military serv ...
,
Eugen Jochum
Eugen Jochum (; 1 November 1902 – 26 March 1987) was a German conductor, best known for his interpretations of the music of Anton Bruckner, Carl Orff, and Johannes Brahms, among others.
Biography
Jochum was born to a Roman Catholic family in ...
,
Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch (12 March 1888 – 25 October 1965) was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Wagner, Bruckner and Richard Strauss.
Knappertsbusch followed the traditional route for an aspiring conductor in Germ ...
,
Joseph Keilberth
Joseph Keilberth (19 April 1908 – 20 July 1968) was a German conductor who specialised in opera.
Career
He started his career in the State Theatre of his native city, Karlsruhe. In 1940 he became director of the German Philharmonic Orches ...
,
Kurt Masur
Kurt Masur (18 July 1927 – 19 December 2015) was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Or ...
,
Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch (26 August 1923 – 22 February 2013) was a German conductor and pianist.
Biography
Wolfgang Sawallisch was born in Munich, the son of Maria and Wilhelm Sawallisch. His father was director of the Hamburg-Bremer-Feuerversich ...
, and
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (5 May 190028 May 1973) was a German conductor and composer. After studying at several music academies, he worked in German opera houses between 1923 and 1945, first as a répétiteur and then in increasingly senior conduct ...
, performing in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, and
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
.
From 1982 he was the president, later the honorary president, of the Johannes-Brahms-Gesellschaft in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
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; there he initiated the city's first Brahms competition. He taught piano at the Konservatorium Osnabrück and the ''Folkwang-Hochschule'' in
Essen
Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
. Kraus published numerous papers on Brahms.
Kraus died of heart failure on January 7, 2008, at the age of 88.
Prizes
* Brahms-Prize of the city of Hamburg (1975)
* Brahms-Prize of the Brahms Society of
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...
(1997)
External links
„Detlef Kraus verstorben“ (German obituary)Website of Johannes-Brahms-Gesellschaft Hamburg* Dedicated photo Detlef Kraus 1973 on musical tour of Southern Africa, organised by Hans Adle
1919 births
2008 deaths
German pianists
20th-century pianists
20th-century German musicians
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