Karl [Carl] Hermann Tautenhayn
born Vienna, August 8, 1871; died Vienna, November 25, 1949)
Documents associated with this person:
Austrian accordion player and composer, associated with Schrammelmusik; also bank employee.
Career Summary
Tautenhayn was from a family of Viennese artists. His father was the medal coiner Josef Hermann Tautenhayn (1837–1911). Tautenhayn started piano lessons at age 10 and attended the Wiener Theresianum and the Handelsakademie. From 1887 until 1889, he studied cello, piano and choral singing with little success at the Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. At the same time, he was the main cashier at the Erste Österreichische Spar-Casse. Already in the 1890s, he founded a trio (accordion, violin and guitar), which was expanded to a quartet (with a second violin), the Tautenhayn-Quartett, and which toured the United States, Italy and Germany. Tautenhayn was also a member of the Wiener Männergesang-Verein for many years.
In his diary, Schenker recorded hearing Tautenhayn play on the Vienna Radio, after he and Jeanette acquired a radio set in October 1924 following the setting up of RAVAG (Radio-Verkehrs-Aktien-Gesellschaft) in Austria on the first of that month.
Sources:
- OeML ("Tautenhayn, Familie")
Contributor:
- Marko Deisinger