Steven Novacek

Stopping in Kassel in October of 1842, Kiel aroused the interest of the great Louis Spohr. With a stipend from King Wilhelm Fredrich IV, Kiel was on his way to Berlin, where he would perfect his technical knowledge under Siegfried Dehn’s tutelage. The theorist and teacher Siefried Dehn (1799-1858) had been appointed custodian of the royal library in 1842, and he was responsible for the publication of the Branderburg Concertos in 1849.

In Berlin the industrious Kiel soon earned a fine reputation and became sought after as an instructor. That reputation was firmly established in 1865 by his election to the Prussian Academy of the Fine Arts. The next year saw his appointment to the 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 under Joseph Joachim’s direction from 1869-1907 achieved a well deserved reputation as one of the finest German music schools. Kiel’s first position there was as professor of counterpoint and fugue and of vocal and instrumental composition, and from 1882 he sat on the board of directors. Among his composition students he could claim Noskowski, Paderewski and Stanford. Kiel died in Berlin on 13 September 1885 as the result of injuries from a traffic accident. In 1906 a short-lived Kiel association was founded. Today, when he is remembered at all, it is as a beloved and important teacher, dedicated to preserving the high-minded principles and good taste of classical-romantic art in the German musical culture of his time.