Friedrich Kiel

Need fear no comparison".

Training under Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn and Kaspar Kummer is recorded. Waldemar von Baußnern, Jacob Adolf Hägg and Moritz Moszkowski are recorded as having studied under Friedrich Kiel. The recorded working language is German. The field of work recorded is music, composed musical work and piano performance. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are classical music. Employment is recorded with Berlin University of the Arts. Distinctions recorded are Order of the Red Eagle.

Kiel was born on 8 October 1821, in Bad Laasphe. He was taught the rudiments of music and received his first piano lessons from his father, but was in large part self-taught. Something of a prodigy, he played the piano almost without instruction at the age of six, and by his thirteenth year he had composed much music. Kiel eventually came to the attention of Prince Albrecht Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, a great music lover. Through the Prince's efforts, Kiel was allowed to study violin with the concertmaster of the Prince’s fine orchestra with which he later performed as a soloist. Kiel was also given theory lessons from the renowned flautist Kaspar Kummer. By 1840, Kiel was court conductor and the music teacher to the prince’s children. Two years later, Louis Spohr heard him and arranged for a scholarship which allowed Kiel to study in Berlin with the renowned theorist and teacher Siegfried Dehn. In Berlin, Kiel eventually became sought after as an instructor. In 1866, he received a teaching position at the prestigious Stern conservatory, where he taught composition and was elevated to a professorship three years later. In 1870 he joined the faculty of the newly founded Hochschule für Musik which was shortly thereafter considered one of the finest music schools in Germany. For his many students Kiel's hobby was mountaineering and at age 60, he climbed Europe's second highest peak, the Monte Rosa, on the Swiss-Italian border. In September 1883 he was involved in a traffic accident with a coach. His injuries eventually forced him to retire shortly before his death in September 1885.