Paul Büttner

Paul Büttner (10 December 1870 – 15 October 1943) was a German choir director, music critic, music educator and composer of the late Romantic period. Biography Born in Dresden, Paul Büttner’s parents originally came from the Eastern Ore Mountains. The father worked in a glass factory in Löbtau. Büttner wrote his first smaller compositions at the age of eight. After school he was given a place at the Dresden Conservatory. He first studied oboe and then took composition lessons from Felix Draeseke, whose most prominent pupil he became. His father’s death made him responsible for the upkeep of his family. Büttner earned the money he needed by playing as an oboist in various smaller dance orchestras. After Paul Büttner became head of various workers’ choirs, he worked from 1896 to 1907 as a choir conductor at the Dresden Conservatory. From 1905 he was given the post of federal conductor of the Dresden Workers’ Association. In 1909, he married the journalist Eva Malzmann. He worked for 21 years from 1912 as a music critic for the social democratic Dresdner Volkszeitung. In 1917 he received the title of professor, and was finally appointed artistic director of the Dresden Conservatory in