Wolfgang Fortner

Wolfgang Fortner (12 October 1907 – 5 September 1987) was a German composer, academic composition teacher and conductor. Life and career Fortner was born in Leipzig. From his parents, who were both singers, Fortner very early on had intense contact with music. In 1927 he began his studies at the Leipzig Conservatory (organ with Karl Straube, composition with Hermann Graubner) and at University of Leipzig, (philosophy with Hans Driesch, musicology with Theodor Kroyer, and German studies with Hermann August Korff) . While still a student, two of his early compositions were publicly performed: Die vier marianischen Antiphonen at the Lower Rhineland Festival in Düsseldorf in 1928, and his First String Quartet in Königsberg in 1930 . In 1931 he completed his studies with the State Exam for a high teaching office, after he accepted a lectureship in music theory at the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Heidelberg. There his music was attacked as Cultural Bolshevism. In 1935 and 1936 Fortner created the Heidelberg Chamber Orchestra with which he supported New Music and undertook expanded concert journeys for “armed forces support”, from Scandinavia to the Netherlands to Greece. In the same year