Pfitzner, Hans [key], 1869–1949, German conductor and composer, b. Moscow. Pfitzner studied music at Hoch's Conservatory in Frankfurt/ Main. His music, conservative in idiom (Pfitzner wrote articles attacking modernism in music), was popular in Germany in the early part of the 20th cent. After World War II his work was largely forgotten, and he spent his last years in homes for the aged. In 1948, Pfitzner was tried for having been actively pro-Nazi, but was acquitted of the charge. Among his compositions are the opera Palestrina (1917); the cantata Von deutscher Seele (1921) [from the German soul]; two symphonies; concertos for piano, violin, and cello; and songs.
See biography by J. M. Müller-Blattau (1969).
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