Robert Kahn

Robert Kahn (21 July 1865 – 29 May 1951) was a German composer, pianist, and music teacher. Life Kahn was born in Mannheim, the second son of Bernhard Kahn and Emma Eberstadt. One of his seven siblings was the wealthy financier Otto Kahn whose son Roger Wolfe Kahn was a successful jazz musician, composer and aviator. His parents belonged to a distinguished German-Jewish family of bankers and merchants. In 1882, Kahn entered the Königlichen Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he studied for the next three years. Between 1885 and 1886, he continued his musical education under Josef Rheinberger in Munich. On a visit to Vienna the following year, Kahn met and befriended composer Johannes Brahms, who offered to make Kahn his pupil. Although Kahn declined the invitation out of diffidence, Brahms's music would exert a profound influence on his compositional style throughout his career. After finishing his military service, Kahn worked as a freelance composer in Berlin until 1890. For the next three years he was employed as a Korrepetitor (rehearsal pianist) at the Stadttheater in Leipzig. Having been appointed lecturer in composition at his alma mater in 1894, Kahn went on to train some of the best-known musicians of the 20th century. His students include the pianists Arthur Rubinstein and Wilhelm Kempff, the conductor Ferdinand Leitner, the composers Theodore Holland, Nikos Skalkottas and Günter Raphael, and the violinist Karl Klinger. While Kahn was composing and teaching in Berlin he also was active as chamber musician and Lied accompanist in concert with leading soloists and singers of his time, ranging from Joseph Joachim and Richard Mühlfeld to Adolf Busch, from Johann Messchaert to Ilona Durigo and Emmy Destinn.