Graunke, Kurt (Karl Wilhelm)
Graunke, Kurt (Karl Wilhelm)
Graunke, Kurt (Karl Wilhelm), German violinist, conductor, and composer; b. Stettin, Sept. 30, 1915. He studied violin with Gustav Havemann at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik, composition with Adolf Lessle and Hermann Grabner, violin with Harms Weisse and Hans Dunschede, and conducting with Felix Husadel. During World War II, he studied in Vienna with Wolfgang Schneiderhan and played violin in the radio orch. In Munich in 1945 he founded his own orch., which he conducted for over 40 years and which made many recordings of scores for movies and television; it also gave several concerts each year, playing the world premieres of many works. His compositions are firmly rooted in Germanic modern Romanticism.
Works
ORCH. (all 1st perf. in Munich): 8 syms.: No. 1 (May 14, 1969), No. 2 (Sept. 9, 1972), No. 3 for Strings (Nov. 7, 1975; also for Orch., May 12, 1976), No. 4 (Jan. 25, 1978), No. 5 (May 13,1981), No. 6 (May 12,1982), No. 7 (May 11,1983), and No. 8 (Sept. 11, 1985); Violin Concerto (Sept. 17, 1959); Air for Harp and Orch.; 2 Symphonic Dances; Novelette; Perpetuum mobile; Valse Anastasia.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire