Straube, (Montgomery Rufus) Karl (Siegfried)

Straube, (Montgomery Rufus) Karl (Siegfried), prominent German organist, choral conductor, and pedagogue; b. Berlin, Jan. 6, 1873; d. Leipzig, April 27, 1950. He was a scion of an established ecclesiastical family; his father was an organist and instrument maker in Berlin; his mother was an Englishwoman who was a piano student of Sir Julius Benedict. He studied organ with his father, Dienel, Reimann, and others in Berlin, where he became deputy organist at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in 1895. From 1897 to 1902 he was organist at the Cathedral of Wesel; in 1902 he became organist at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig; in 1903 he was appointed conductor of the Bachverein there, and in 1907 became a prof. at the Cons. and organist ex officio at the Gewandhaus. In 1918 he became cantor at the Thomaskirche. At his suggestion the Gewandhaus Chorus and the Bachverein were united in 1919, and he conducted the combined choir until 1932. He conducted the Handel Festival in 1925, leading to the formation of the Handel Soc. In his teaching, he followed the great tradition of Leipzig organists, traceable to Bach. Among Straube’s numerous collections of organ and choral pieces are Alte Orgelmeister (1904); 45 Choralvorspiele alter Meister (1907); Alte Meister des Orgelspiels (2 vols., 1929); Ausgewahlte Gesänge des Thomanerchors (1930); he brought out eds. of several works of Bach, Handel, and Liszt. His Briefe eines Thomaskantors was publ. posthumously (Stuttgart, 1952).

Biblography

J. Wolgast, K. S. (Leipzig, 1928); K. S. zu seinem 70. Geburtstag (Leipzig, 1943); G. Hartmann, K. S. und seine Schule: “Das Ganze ist ein Mythos” (Bonn, 1991).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire