Kullak, Theodor

1818-1882

Successful pianist, composer and teacher; born at Krotoschin, Posen, and died at Berlin. When a child, his talent was discovered by Prince Radziwill, who had the boy instructed by Agthe. Kullak's father was opposed to a musical career and would have preferred to have him take up the law or medicine. He did make some efforts along these branches, but finally gave up his time entirely to music, and  studied under Dehn and Agthe again in Berlin and under Czerny, Sechter and Nicolai in Vienna. He then made a very successul tour through Austria and when he returned was appointed piano teacher in the Royal family and in 1846 became Court pianist to the King of Prussia. With Stern and Marx he started a conservatory in Berlin in 1850, but as his business relations with them became strained he left and started a school of his own, also in Berlin, called Neue Akademie der Tonkunst. This enterprise prospered and he soon had one hundred teachers and over one thousand pupils. Among the instructors was his brother Adolf, who wrote a few pieces and published some very good instructive methods, and his son, Franz, who had studied with his father and a little with Liszt. Franz had charge of the orchestra class, and at his father's death took the entire control of the school until 1890 when it was closed. Some of the distinguished pupils of the elder Kullak were Arthur Mees, Hans Bischoff,  A. Grünfeld, O. Neitzel, C. Sternberg, Moritz Moszkowski, Erica Lie, Martha Remmert and Helene Geissler. Kullak's most important works are a grand concerto in C minor for piano and orchestra; trio for piano and strings; duos for piano and violin; ballades and boleros for piano; many brilliant fantasias and paraphrases for piano; collections of small pieces; Ondine; Concert-etude; and his Octave-school, a book on musical instruction.