Biografia   

Paul Dessau (Amburgo, 1894 – Königs Wusterhausen, 1979) è stato un direttore d'orchestra tedesco.
In seguito all'avvento del nazismo si rifugiò negli USA, ove rimase fino al 1948. Tornato nella RDT, ne ebbe il rinomato Premio Nazionale.
Fu autore di lieder, composizioni varie e di un melodramma, La condanna di Lucullo.

fonte: wikipedia

Dessau, Paul. - Musicista tedesco (Amburgo 1894 - Berlino Est 1979). Studiò al conservatorio Klindworth-Scharwenka di Berlino, e si dedicò poi alla composizione e alla direzione d'orchestra. Abbandonò la Germania all'avvento del nazismo e nel 1939 si stabilì a New York; nel 1948 si trasferì a Berlino Est. Collaboratore di B. Brecht, ha scritto le musiche di scena per diversi suoi lavori (Mutter Courage, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, Herr Puntila, ecc.). Su testo di Brecht, ha composto anche Das Verhör des Lukullus (1951). La sua produzione comprende inoltre altri lavori teatrali, oratorî, cantate, musiche sinfoniche e da camera.

fonte: treccani.it

Paul Dessau (19 December 1894 – 28 June 1979) was a German composer and conductor.Dessau was born in Hamburg into a musical family. His grandfather, Moses Berend Dessau, was a cantor, his uncle, Professor Bernhard Dessau, Konzertmeister (English: leader, lead violinist, or concertmaster) at the Royal Opera House, Unter den Linden, his cousin Max Winterfeld became generally known under the name Jean Gilbert as a composer of operettas and his second cousin, Robert Gerson Muller-Hartmann, was a composer and collaborator with Vaughan Williams.[citation needed]
From 1909 he majored in violin at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin. In 1912 he became répétiteur at the City Theatre (Stadttheater) in Hamburg. There he studied the work of the conductors Felix Weingartner and Arthur Nikisch and took classes in composition from Max Julius Loewengard. He was second Kapellmeister at the Tivoli Theatre in Bremen in 1914 before being drafted for military service in 1915.[citation needed]
After World War I he became conductor at the Intimate Theatre (Kammerspiele), Hamburg, and was répétiteur and later Kapellmeister at the opera house in Cologne under Otto Klemperer between 1919 and 1923. In 1923 he became Kapellmeister in Mainz and from 1925 Principal Kapellmeister at the Städtische Oper Berlin under Bruno Walter.[citation needed]
In 1933 Dessau emigrated to France, and 1939 moved further to the United States, where initially he lived in New York before moving to Hollywood. Dessau returned to Germany with his second wife, the writer Elisabeth Hauptmann, and settled in East Berlin in 1948.[citation needed]


Dessau's grave in Berlin
Starting in 1952 he taught at the Public Drama School (Staatliche Schauspielschule) in Berlin-Oberschöneweide where he was appointed to a professorship in 1959. He became a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Künste Berlin in 1952 and was vice-president of this institution between 1957 and 1962. He taught many master classes, his pupils including Friedrich Goldmann, Reiner Bredemeyer, Jörg Herchet, Hans-Karsten Raecke, Friedrich Schenker, Luca Lombardi and Karl Ottomar Treibmann.[citation needed]
From 1954 he was married to the choreographer and director Ruth Berghaus. Their son Maxim Dessau (b. 1954) is a film director.
Dessau died on 28 June 1979 at the age of 84, in the then East German city of Königs Wusterhausen, on the outskirts of Berlin.

fonte: wikipedia