Background
Prausnitz, Frederik William was born on August 26, 1920 in Cologne, Germany. Came to the United States, 1937. Son of Friedrich Julius and Maja Eleanor (Moritz) Prausnitz.
(Drawing on his years on the podium and in the classroom, ...)
Drawing on his years on the podium and in the classroom, Prausnitz delineates the conductor's art in its two essential facets: profound understanding and command of the material (score) and the skills necessary to impart that understanding through gesture (podium).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393951545/?tag=2022091-20
(For more than half of his long life, composer Roger Sessi...)
For more than half of his long life, composer Roger Sessions was a commanding figure on the American musical scene. He enjoyed the solid respect of his peers, and as a teacher of a generation of composers and author of compelling writings on his craft, his influence on musical thought remains profound. Yet, even in his lifetime, his music endured vastly disrespectful neglect. He was a "difficult" composer. Sessions was well aware of it. In a New York Times article, he wrote, "I have sometimes been told that my music is 'difficult' for the listener. There are those who consider this as praise, those who consider it a reproach. For my part I regard it as, in itself, neither one or the other...it is the way the music comes, the way it has to come." The way Sessions's music "had to come" is a recurrent focus of this biography. As the story is told, often in the composer's own words, the complex picture emerges of a remarkable man who, gradually and not very willingly, learned to accept his unexpected lot as a "difficult" composer. Frederik Prausnitz, an acquaintance of Sessions and conductor of his work, combines personal and musical insights to present this fascinating portrait of an influential, yet often overlooked, modernist composer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195108922/?tag=2022091-20
conductor university professor
Prausnitz, Frederik William was born on August 26, 1920 in Cologne, Germany. Came to the United States, 1937. Son of Friedrich Julius and Maja Eleanor (Moritz) Prausnitz.
Graduate diploma in conducting, Juilliard Graduate School, 1946.
His family, of Lutheran background, emigrated from Cologne to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1937 because of deep disagreements with the Nazi regime. After his return to the United States he was the Music Director of the Syracuse Symphony for three years, then joined the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained until his retirement in 1998. Noted especially for his commitment to contemporary music, he was also a devoted exponent of the music of Gustav Mahler.
He wrote a biography of Roger Sessions and a conducting textbook, Score and Podium.
He adopted the unusual form of his first name after seeing an Italian concert poster with that misspelling.
(Drawing on his years on the podium and in the classroom, ...)
(For more than half of his long life, composer Roger Sessi...)
Member Savage Club (London).
Married Margaret Violet Prausnitz. Children: Sebastian, Maja.