Background
Graun was born in Wahrenbrück in the Margraviate of Brandenburg.
Graun was born in Wahrenbrück in the Margraviate of Brandenburg.
Carl Heinrich Graun studied singing with Christian Petzold and composition with Johann Christoph Schmidt.
Along with Johann Adolph Hasse, Carl Heinrich Graun is considered to be the most important German composer of Italian opera of his time. In 1724, Graun moved to Braunschweig, singing at the opera house and writing six operas for the company. In 1735, Graun moved to Rheinsberg in Brandenburg, after he had written the opera Lo specchio della fedeltà for the marriage of the then crown prince Frederick (the Great) and Elisabeth Christine in Schloss Salzdahlum in 1733.
He was Kapellmeister to Frederick the Great from his ascension to the throne in 1740 until Graun"s death nineteen years later in Berlin.
Graun wrote a number of operas. His opera Cesare e Cleopatra inaugurated the opening of the Berlin State Opera (Königliche Hofoper) in 1742.
Montezuma (1755) was written to a libretto by King Frederick. His other works include concertos and trio sonatas.
His great-great-great-great-grandson, Vladimir Nabokov, became an eminent 20th-century novelist.