Karl Amadeus Hartmann

Karl Amadeus Hartmann was born in Munich on 2 August 1905 and died there on 5 December 1963. After teacher training from 1919 to 1922 he studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Tonkunst München from 1924 to 1931. From about 1929 he worked together with Hermann Scherchen; in 1942 he took private lessons with Anton Webern. In 1934 he married Elisabeth Reußmann, and in 1935 their son Richard was born. In the National Socialist period “Miserae”, the later “Concerto funebre” and the opera “Simplicius Simplicissimus” came into being; he buried his scores in a zinc box and hid in the cellar of his parents-in-law. After 1945 he worked as a music dramaturge at the Bayerische Staatsoper and in 1945 founded the concert series “musica viva”. His work comprises eight symphonies; in 1954 he received the Schönberg-Medaille. His former flat on Franz-Joseph-Straße in Munich is today the seat of the Karl Amadeus Hartmann Zentrum.