German conductor and and composer belonging to the Brahms circle in Vienna. Graedener studied at Vienna University, becoming a professor there in 1882, and taught music theory and composition at the Vienna Conservatory from 1875 to 1912.

Graedener and Schenker

Schenker reviewed several of Graedener's compositions, notably his Piano Quintet No. 2, on which he wrote extensively with lavish music examples in 1892, referring to its "wholesale, huge richness."

Graedener was one of those members of faculty whom the administration of the Vienna Conservatory pensioned off in 1912, together with Robert Fuchs. Schenker's friend Moriz Violin emphasized these two enforced retirements in his pamphlet of protest Die Zustände an der k. k. Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (Vienna: Violin, 1912), pp. 15-18 ("whose work at Vienna's Music High School will never be forgotten, whose teaching has enriched that institution honorably").

Graedener's first wife was Irene Graedener (née Mayerhofer), one of Schenker's patrons. Hermann and she had two children, Irene and Hermann, the latter of whom Schenker taught. Hermann's second wife was Josefine Polzer.

Correspondence with Schenker

One letter from Graedener to Schenker survives (OJ 11/24: 1901).

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