William and Gayle Cook Music Library

Walter Kaufmann Archive : Biography

Kaufmann held many positions during the course of his musical career. From 1927 to 1933, he conducted summer seasons of opera in Berlin, Karlsbad, and Eger (Cheb), Bohemia. He spent eleven years (1935-1946) in India, where he held a number of positions simultaneously. From 1935 to 1937, he was the composer for Bhavnani Films and for Information Films of India, and was the Musical Director of the Bombay Chamber Music Society. From 1937 to 1946, he was Director of Music for All India Radio in Bombay, and lectured at Bombay University (Sophia College). He spent a year (1946-1947) in England, where he was a guest conductor at the BBC in London, and a composer and conductor at Arthur Rank Films. In 1947, he was named Head of the Piano Department and Professor of Piano and Composition at the Halifax Conservatory of Music, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. From 1948 to 1957, Kaufmann was the Musical Director and Conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In 1957, Kaufmann moved permanently to the United States where he joined the School of Music faculty at Indiana University in Bloomington, as Professor of Music in the department of Musicology. He became an American citizen in 1964.

While in India, Kaufmann devoted a great deal of time to the study of the Hindu systems of musical composition, which influenced many of his compositions, resulting in a mixture of Eastern and Western influences. Kaufmann was a prolific composer of operas, orchestral music, and chamber music. He also composed other stage works such as ballets and incidental music, and vocal, choral, and keyboard works.

Kaufmann's written publications include books, articles, and reviews of books and sound recordings. Investigations that he began in India into Hindu and other Eastern musics resulted in a remarkable series of books on Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese music that are widely recognized as outstanding scholarly achievements. A selective bibliography of his books is included herewith.

William and Gayle Cook Music Library

This inventory and finding aid to the archive was begun by Dennis Davies-Wilson as a project for the Seminar in Music Librarianship at Indiana University, Spring 1996. Davies-Wilson concentrated on musical works from the areas of Kaufmann's output that were most prolific, the orchestral music, and operas and other stage works. Work on the inventory was continued in Spring 1997 by Joyce Hoi-Szi, who inventoried Kaufmann's keyboard works, vocal works (vocal solos and choral works), and arrangements. The inventory was completed by Dr. Zuzana Jurková, a Fulbright scholar from the Czech Republic, in Spring-Summer 1998 (chamber music, documents, correspondences, newspapers, monographs, writings, photographs, and miscellanea).

Information in the annotations in the inventory is in most instances taken directly from the items in the collection. Information shown in [ brackets ] is from secondary sources, principally the books and articles listed in the bibliography in this resource.

Access to this collection is limited to visitors to the Cook Music Library. For additiional information, contact Michael Fling, Head of Collection Development, Cook Music Library, Bloomington, IN 47405; email: fling@indiana.edu; phone: (812) 855-2970.

Scores, recordings, and books by Kaufmann that are cataloged as part of the Music Library's general collection and that are not part of the Kaufmann Archive can be located with an author search in IUCAT, the online catalog at Indiana University.

William and Gayle Cook Music Library