Carl Kittel

The Bayreuth Festival in 1931; left to right: Alexander Spring (manager and one of the pall-bearers at the funeral of Siegfried Wagner), Wilhelm Furtwangler, Heinz Tietjen, Winifred Wagner, Arturo Toscanini and Carl Kittel.

Carl Kittel's grave at Bayreuth

Carl Kittel (sometimes Karl; b. 20 September 1874 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary; d. 8 September 1945 in Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, allied-occupied Germany) was a very modest and today rather forgotten Austrian conductor and composer whose accumulated compositions were lost when the USAAF outrageously terror-bombed Bayreuth in the last weeks of World War II. He was a friend of Siegfried Wagner, whose compositions he performed.

Life

Sister Hermine

Carl Kittel studied in Vienna and first worked as the director of the choirs in Graz (1891-1901) and Hamburg (1901-1904). Cosima Wagner (née Liszt) asked him to come to Bayreuth, and in 1912 he succeeded Julius Kniese as the leader of the musical preparations for the Festspiele in Bayreuth. He became a professor at the Lyceum in Bayreuth and was involved with the Festspiele until his death. Kittel was a conductor (Kapellmeister), choir director, composer, pianist, music teacher and painter.

Third Reich

During the Third Reich, now a German citizen, he also was occupied as an appraiser for the Reich Administration of the National Socialist Teachers' Association (NSLB). Among his many students were the mezzo-soprano Katinka Storm and the bass singer Rudolf Watzke (1892–1982).

Death

The last year of his life he lived with his daughter Herma in Schwerin. Professor Kittel is buried next to Franz Liszt in the municipal cemetery of Bayreuth.

Honorary grave

Call for donations (2004)

Since the city of Bayreuth no longer wants to continue the care of the honorary grave of Prof. Carl Kittel, the deserving employee of the Bayreuth Festival and close friend of Siegfried Wagner, for whose opera scores he created the piano reductions, Dieter Beyerlein and Helmut Dotzauer have formed a private initiative, in order to work together with the Bayreuth Philharmonic Choir e.V., to preserve the grave site next to the Franz Liszt mausoleum in the Bayreuth city cemetery for the next 20 years. The initiators are asking for further donations for this purpose.

Family

Carl the son of the locally popular Viennese folk singer Wilhelm Kittel. His sister was the opera singer (contralto), theater actor and singing teacher Hermine Kittel, married Haydter (1879–1948).

Piano scores (excerpt)

• STERNENGEBOT
• AN ALLEM IST HÜTCHEN SCHULD!
• DAS MÄRCHEN VOM DICKEN, FETTEN PFANNEKUCHEN
• CONCERTSTÜCK FÜR FLÖTE UND KLEINES ORCHESTER
• VIOLIN-CONCERT
• SONNENFLAMMEN (overture)
• DER SCHMIED VON MARIENBURG (2nd act)
• DER HEIDENKÖNIG (2nd act)
• RAINULF UND ADELASIA (1st and 3rd act; unpublished)