Paul Graener

A boy soprano, he taught himself composition and in 1896 moved to London, where he gave private lessons and served briefly as conductor at the Haymarket Theatre.

He moved several times in the 1910s, living in Salzburg, Dresden and Munich, eventually accepting the position of professor of composition at the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre which had previously been held by Max Reger.

This position, previously held by Wilhelm Furtwängler, was a major governmental post within an arm of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, although the extent to which Graener sympathized with Nazi ideals is a subject of debate[citation needed] - however, Erik Levi states in Graener's entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (ç.

In the late 1920s, Graener had joined the Militant League for German Culture, and on 1 April 1933 he became a member of the Nazi Party.

During World War II, his Berlin apartment was bombed and he moved with his family to, successively, Wiesbaden, Munich, Vienna and Salzburg, where he died aged 72 in 1944.