Kurt Pahlen (1992)Kurt Pahlen and Myrtha Garbarini (1958)Kurt Pahlen (2002)
Kurt Pahlen (May 26, 1907 – July 24, 2003) was an Austrian conductor and musicologist.
Life
Pahlen was born in Vienna, in 1907. At the age of seven, he lost his father, the song accompanist Richard Pahlen. His mother got married for the second time to the banker Paul Raumann and moved to Berlin-Schmargendorf with him and his son. Kurt Pahlen studied musicology and German studies in his hometown. In addition, he completed an apprenticeship as Kapellmeister at the Vienna Music Academy. In 1929 he received his doctorate.[1]
After his first successes as Kapellmeister of the Vienna Volksoper and being appreciated by the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria [de] as choirmaster, he directed the music events of the Volkshochschule Ottakring. He was a conductor at Radio Wien and the Vienna Symphony and founded an opera studio at Ludo-Hartmann-Platz in the working-class district of Ottakring. Although, according to his own statement he was not personally threatened by Nazism,[2] Pahlen did not return in 1938 from a stay in Zürich and emigrated in 1939 to Argentina. In Buenos Aires he became the music director and head of the Filarmónica Metropolitana, in which also played with the Austrian emigrant Estéban Eitler. Pahlen then became a professor at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo and was the founder and holder of the Department of Music History. For many years he was director of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires; also taught at the Pestalozzi School Buenos Aires. In those years he befriended Manuel de Falla, Paul Hindemith, and also from Vienna, Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Since 1944, Pahlen wrote over 40 books, some of which were translated into 16 languages. His radio and television programs as well as his introductory lectures at the Salzburg Easter Festival, Verona Opera Festival, Munich Opera Festival, Vienna Festival, and Bregenz Festival made him known to a large audience. Not only opera-goers, but also musicians, singers and conductors appreciate the guide he has published in the series "Operas of the World" on famous works of music theater.
Musikgeschichte der Welt. Zürich 1947
Manuel de Falla und die Musik in Spanien. Walter, Olten 1953
Musiklexikon der Welt. Zürich 1956
Tschaikovsky. Ein Lebensbild. Stuttgart 1959
Musik. Eine Einführung. Zürich 1965
Sinfonie der Welt. 1967
Mensch und Musik. 1974
Oratorien der Welt. 1985
Die großen Epochen der abendländischen Musik. 1991
Das Buch der Volkslieder. 176 Volkslieder aus acht Jahrhunderten. 1998
Die große Geschichte der Musik. 2002 (revised edition of Die großen Epochen...)
Reihe Opern der Welt – die großen Werke der Opernliteratur (a volume to a well-known work of music theater with textbook, introduction and commentary)
Ja, die Zeit ändert viel. Mein Jahrhundert mit der Musik (Autobiography). München 2001, ISBN3-421-05462-2
An die Freude: das Leben von Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, told by Kurt Pahlen. In collaboration with Rosemarie König, Diogenes, Zürich 2005, ISBN978-3-257-23526-5.
