Martin Blumner
Martin Blumner was a German composer, conductor, and music theorist. He was born in Fürstenberg, Mecklenburg, on 21 November 1827 and died in Berlin on 16 November 1901.
He took music lessons from an early age with the concertmaster Hepfert. In 1845, he began studying theology at the University of Berlin, later turning to philosophy and natural sciences. That same year, he joined the Berlin Singakademie. From 1847, he devoted himself to music and studied composition with Z. W. Dehn and counterpoint with G. W. Teschner. He became assistant conductor to E. Grell that year, and in 1876 became conductor of the Berlin Singakademie. He also conducted Zelter’s Song Society for many years.
Blumner became a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts in 1875, joined its senate in 1880, and led its music section from 1885. He was appointed professor and, in the early 1890s, head of its master class in composition. In 1891, he became vice-president of the academy and director of its advanced school of composition.
Blumner composed vocal music, including the oratorios Abraham (1859) and The Fall of Jerusalem (1874), an eight-part setting of the Te Deum, large cantatas for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, and the funeral cantata In Time and Eternity (1885). He also wrote a celebratory cantata for the Berlin Singakademie’s anniversary in 1891, as well as psalm settings and motets. The University of Berlin awarded him an honorary doctorate in philosophy for his book History of the Berlin Singakademie (1891).