Bruno Oscar Klein

Life

Born: 06 June 1858, Osnabrück, Lower Saxony

Died: 22 June 1911, New York City

Biography

Bruno Oscar Klein was born on June 6, 1858, in Osnabrück in Lower Saxony, to Carl Klein and Mathilde von Warnecke Klein. Carl was the music director of the cathedral, Dom Sankt Petrus, and gave his children a musical education. After graduating from the Gymnasium Carolinium with honors in Greek and Latin, Klein went to the Hochschule für Musik in Munich (1875-77), where he studied counterpoint with Josef Rheinberger, score-reading with Franz Wüllner, and piano with Carl Baermann. He left with solid technical skills; he was said to be able to transpose any work at sight. His first published compositions came out in 1875, which elicited an encouraging letter from Franz Liszt.

In 1878, he went to Philadelphia to visit his brother, and liked what he saw. He returned to Germany, married Emilie Schaeffer, a piano graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory, and moved to New York; they had at least two children. By 1884, he was organist at St. Francis Xavier and head of the piano department at the Convent of the Sacred Heart (where he stayed until his death). From 1887 to 1891 or 1892 he taught counterpoint and composition at the National Conservatory of Music. In 1896, he became a founding member of the American Guild of Organists. By 1904, he had become organist at St. Ignatius. 

 Meanwhile, he wrote a steady stream of sacred and secular music, including an opera, Kenilworth (premiered in Hamburg on Feb 13, 1895, orchestral and chamber music, songs and piano music, and 6 Masses and about 50 motets, most published by J. Fischer & Bro.

View the Wikipedia article on Bruno Oscar Klein.

List of choral works

• Beati omnes, Op. 29/1
• Ecce sacerdos magnus, Op. 29/2
• Ego vir videns, Op. 29/5
• Manum suam misit hostis, Op. 29/4

 
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