Werner Egk [Werner Mayer] Biography

German composer. Though briefly a pupil of Orff , he was largely self-taught. He worked for Bavarian radio ( 1923 – 33 ) and came to prominence with his radio opera Columbus ( 1932 , revised for the stage in 1942 ). His opera Die Zaubergeige (‘The Magic Violin’, 1935 ) made him successful in the Third Reich, though some have seen elements of subversion in his work from the period. Adverse critical reaction to his opera Peer Gynt ( 1938 , after Ibsen) was quashed when the Nazi authorities championed the piece. Egk was appointed Kapellmeister at the Berlin Staatsoper, 1936 – 40 , then in 1941 head of the composers' section of Goebbels's Reichsmusikkammer . From 1950 to 1953 he was director of the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. He was primarily a dramatic composer drawing on mainstream European literature, his style, influenced by Stravinsky , being essentially polytonal and often marked by caustic wit. His later operas include Irische Legende ( 1955 , after Yeats ), Der Revisor (‘The Government Inspector’, 1957 , after Gogol ), and Die Verlobung in San Domingo (‘The Betrothal in Santo Domingo’, 1963 , after Kleist ).

Paul Griffiths / Tim Ashley