GRAUN, KARL HEINRICH German com poser, the youngest of three brothers, all musicians, was born on May 7, 1701, at Wahrenbriick, Saxony. Graun's beautiful soprano voice secured him an appointment in the choir at Dresden. At an early age he composed a number of sacred cantatas and other pieces for the church service. He completed his studies under Johann Christoph Schmidt (1664-1728), and profited much by the Italian operas which were performed at Dresden under the composer Lotti. He made his debut as a tenor in opera at Bruns wick, in a work by Schiirmann, an inferior composer of the day; but not being satisfied with the arias assigned him he rewrote them, and in the result was commissioned to write a complete opera for the next season. This work, Polydorus (1726), and five other operas, together with two settings of the Passion, belong to the Brunswick period. In 1735 Frederick the Great, at that time crown prince of Prussia, engaged Graun for his private chapel at Rheinsberg. There he remained for five years, and wrote a number of cantatas, mostly to words written by Frederick him self in French, and translated into Italian by Boltarelli. On his accession to the throne in 174o, Frederick sent Graun to Italy to engage singers for a new opera to be established at Berlin. Graun remained a year on his travels singing in the chief cities of Italy. After his return to Berlin he was appointed conductor of the royal orchestra (Kapellmeister) and in this capacity he wrote 28 operas, all to Italian words, of which the last, Merope (1756), is perhaps the best. It was however in his oratorio Der Tod Jesu that he revealed to the full his powers and produced a work which gained for him the highest applause. In Germany in deed Der Tod Jesu long held a place similar to that occupied by The Messiah in England, being regularly performed in Holy Week for a century and a half after the composer's death. The Te Deum written to celebrate the victory of Prague (1757) was another of Graun's sacred choral works which found great favour and showed him at his best. Graun died on Aug. 8, 1759, at Berlin, in the same house in which, 32 years later, Meyerbeer was born.
See K. Mennicke, Hasse and die Briider Graun als Sinfoniker (1906), in which a thematic catalogue of Graun's works will be found.