Biography
Walter Braunfels was born on 19 December 1882 in Frankfurt am Main, the son of jurist and writer Ludwig Braunfels. He studied piano with, among others, Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna, and from the 1920s ranked alongside Richard Strauss and Franz Schreker among Germany's most performed opera composers. In 1923 he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, and in 1925 he co-founded the Cologne Musikhochschule with Hermann Abendroth, serving as its director. In 1933 the Nazis, who classified the Catholic Braunfels as a "half-Jew", drove him from all his posts and banned performances of his work; he withdrew to Lake Constance, where he continued composing in inner emigration, including three operas. Recalled to Cologne in 1945 to rebuild the Musikhochschule, he served as its president until 1950 and died in Cologne on 19 March 1954.
On Stagelog
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