Richard Rudolf Klein

Richard Rudolf Klein (21 May 1921 in Nußdorf/Pfalz – 17 December 2011) was a German composer, musician, and teacher. His compositional output is diverse, including nursery rhymes and music for children, choral music and hymns, incidental music, and orchestral music, as well as chamber music. Life Klein attended the humanistic Gymnasium in Landau, Germany and learned to play the piano, the violin, and the viola. He later learned the trumpet and the organ. He started composing at a young age and as an adolescent had already conducted his own works with his school orchestra on the occasion of school and commemorative events. In 1935, at the age of fourteen, he started performing piano pieces and songs in broadcasts at the former Rundfunk-Sender Kaiserslautern. His teachers included Wolfgang Fortner (composition), Hans Grischkat and Karl Münchinger (conducting), as well as Philipp Mohler. In 1948, when he was 27, Klein received a lecturing position for music theory at the University of Music in Stuttgart, and one year later he became lecturer of music theory at the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie in Detmold. From 1960 to 1984, he was a lecturer in composition, musical form, score readin