Career Summar

Praetorius studied music composition as a child, then music history and systematic music with Carl Stumpf at the University of Berlin 1899‒1905 with a dissertation on the mensural theory of Gafurius. He was director of the Heyer Music-Historical Museum 1906‒09, then worked as repetiteur and music director at the Cologne Opera 1909‒12 and subsequently as music director at theaters and opera houses in Bochum, Leipzig, Breslau, Lübeck, Berlin, and Weimar. He was attacked in the national socialist press for his involvement in contemporary opera (Krenek, Hindemith), and under that pressure was removed from his Weimar position in 1933, and went into exile in Turkey in 1935.

He is not to be confused with the illustrator, pianist, and set designer Emil Preetorius.