Peter Raabe

Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. h. c. Peter Raabe

Karl Ludwig Hermann Peter Raabe (b. 27 November 1872 in Frankfurt an der Oder, Province of Brandenburg, German Empire; d. 12 April 1945 in Weimar, Gau Thuringia, German Reich) was a prominent German musician, composer, conductor, musicologist, bandmaster (Kapellmeister). He wrote the first complete chronology of the works of Franz Liszt. Raabe was particularly interested in popular musical education and saw in “mass art”, American light music, hits, operetta, fashionable dances and cinema, a threat to German culture. He also fought against the decline in culture caused by economic hardship and was critical of the mechanization of the arts through radio and records.

Life

Raabe's parents were the painter and set designer at the city theater Hermann Raabe (1840–1878) and his wife, the piano teacher Pauline, née Flesche (1834–1897). After graduating with Abitur in Frankfurt/O., Raabe studied at the Higher Musical School in Berlin from 1891 to 1894 under Professor Woldemar Bargiel (1828–1897). Visits to the concerts of Hans on Bülow and Felix Weingartner encouraged him to become a conductor. Between 1894 and 1907, Raabe had jobs as an opera conductor in Königsberg, Zwickau, Elberfeld and Amsterdam (Dutch Opera-House from 1899 to 1903), and as a concert conductor in Munich (where he conducted the Kai Orchestra's folk symphony concerts from7 October 1903 to 21 March 1906) and Mannheim. During his almost 50-year conducting career, he was a guest conductor in numerous cities at home and abroad. From 1907 to 1920, Raabe had conducted operas and concerts in Weimar as court conductor and in 1910 he also took over the custodianship of the Liszt Museum. Raabe performed in the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the Netherlands, among other locations.

In 1916, he received his doctorate (Dr. phil.) at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena with a dissertation on the genesis of Franz Liszt's first orchestral works (Die Entstehungsgeschichte der ersten Orchesterwerke Franz Liszts). In 1931, a two-volume monograph about Liszt's life and work was published, which also contains the first comprehensive catalog of Liszt's works and represents Raabe's main musicological work. It is still of musicological importance today, bearing witness to his intensive preoccupation with the life and work of Franz Liszt.

Since 1917, Raabe was involved in the publication of the complete Liszt edition (34 vols., 1907–36, incomplete). From 1920 to 1934, he worked as general music director in Aachen (Generalmusikdirektor des Sinfonieorchesters Aachen) and since 1924 as honorary professor of music history at the Technische Hochschule there. After Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989) was appointed his successor in 1935, Raabe moved back to Weimar.

Raabe's repertoire included works from Viennese classical music and Romantic music as well as contemporary music and new music. As a conductor, he devoted himself primarily to the works of Beethoven, Bruckner and Richard Wagner, but also performed many compositions by little-known contemporaries.He expressly insisted that his call to found the Association for the Care of New Music (Verein zur Pflege Neuer Musik) should be understood in his capacity as a private artist and not on behalf of the city of Aachen. This association was finally founded on 18 December 1927 after some press announcements in the local press. Raabe supported both modern and conservative composers, although the latter was much closer to him. He supported his contemporaries Hugo Kaun and Richard Wetz particularly intensively. In 1923, Raabe made it clear in a lecture that it understood all of its activities in a German-national sense. He was able to prove that German music had certain advantages over the music of other peoples, which were expressed in it's special depth and content.

On 19 July 1935, Raabe superseded Richard Strauss as the President of German State Music Chamber (Reichsmusikkammer). For almost ten years, Raabe directed the musical activity of Germany. A Reichsmusikkammer Decree issued on 9 August 1935 by Dr. Peter Raabe notified the Jewish musician Dr. Werner Liebenthal of the immediate cessation of his professional activity. At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, he served as a judge at the Olympic Art Competitions (Music, Instrumental, Chamber, Solo, Chorus and Orchestra). He appeared as a conductor at Reich Party conventions and in May 1937, he became member of the NSDAP. At the ceremony in front of the Walhalla Temple near Regensburg on 6 June 1937, on the occasion of the installation of a bust of the composer Anton Bruckner in the Hall of Fame, Prof. Max Auer, President of the Vienna Bruckner Society, and Prof. Peter Raabe presented Adolf Hitler with the first copy of the Bruckner Medal.

Family

In Elberfeld in 1897, Raabe married the singer Zdenka Koráb (1872–1946), They had two children:

• Eva (1898–1986)
• Felix (1900–1996), conducter, General Music Director and lecturer in Aachen

Memberships

• Board member of the 1861 founded General German Music Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein) since 1919 (since 1935 1. Chairman)
• Chairman of the Liszt Association (Liszt-Bund) since 1929
• Honorary member of the Bruckner Society since 1934

Awards, decorations and honours

• Order of the White Falcon (Hausorden vom Weißen Falken), Knight's Cross II. Class
• Gold Medal for Arts and Sciences (Sachsen-Altenburg) on the ribbon of the Knight's Cross of the White Falcon Order in 1909
• Red Eagle Order, IV. Class in 1912
• Cross of Honor for service to the homeland (Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach) for WWI service at the home front
• German Olympia Honour Badge in 1936
• Goethe Medal for Art and Science (Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft) in 1942

Honours

• Honorary professor in 1924
• Honorary doctor (Dr. phil. h. c.) of the University of Königsberg (Albertina) in 1936

Writings (excerpt)

• Die Entstehungsgeschichte der ersten Orchesterwerke Liszts, 1916
• Großherzog Carl Alexander und Liszt, 1918
• Franz Liszt, 2 Volumes, 1931
  • republished in 1968 by son Felix Raabe
• Die Musik im Dritten Reich (The Music in the Third Reich), Bosse, Regensburg 1935
• Vom Neubau deutscher musikalischer Kultur, 1936 published speech from 16 February 1934)
• Kulturwille im deutschen Musikleben (Cultural Will in German Musical Life), Bosse, Regensburg 1936
• Worten von Hans Sachs, 1936
• Lebendige Musik – Eine Anleitung zum Musikhören, 1936
• Deutsche Meister. Reden von Peter Raabe, 1937
• Festmusik für Orchester mit Schlußgesang (ad libitum) für einstimmigen Chor nach J. G. Fichte, 1937
• Wege zu Weber, 1942
• Wege zu Liszt, 1943
• Wege zu Bruckner, 1944

Sources

• Who Was Who in the Third Reich, a biographic encyclopedica-dictionary, Moscow, 2003 (in Russian).