Hans Kayser
Hans
Kayser: a brief biography
by
Ariel Godwin
2007
Hans Kayser was
born on April 1, 1891, in Buchau am Federsee, a small town in the far south of Germany, some 30 miles from Lake Constance
and the Swiss border. His father, Gustav Kayser, was a pharmacist by
profession, and was descended from Protestants expelled from Salzburg in the 1730s; his mother, Maria
Göbel, was the daughter of a successful barrel factory owner. The couple had
met through a wintertime accident: Maria, while skating, had fallen through the
ice, and Gustav had gallantly pulled her out.
Hans was the
second of four children. Soon after his birth, the family moved to nearby
Sigmaringen on the river Danube, where they set up their residence and business
in the Hofapotheke, a noble five-story building in the town center whose
construction is dated to 1707. In this setting, the Kaysers developed into a
truly musical family. Gustav, a violin and viola player, went so far as to have
an addition with a large bay window built onto the house; in the evenings, Hans
(whose main instrument was the cello) and his younger brother Erich would play
quartet pieces with their father and various friends, and crowds would gather
outside to listen to the music coming through the open windows. The house became
famous, for there was nothing quite like it in the area.
In such an
atmosphere, the young Hans flourished as a musician and also as a painter,
although he was a notoriously poor student (as suggested by a 12th grade
report card unearthed on the occasion of his hundredth birthday, showing most
of his grades as merely “acceptable,” though his conduct is described as
“praiseworthy”). The pursuits encouraged in the family were not limited to the
arts; Gustav was also an avid botanist and a collector of stones, shells, and
insects. Later, in his writings on harmonics, Hans Kayser would often express a
heartfelt reverence for nature combined with a solidly scientific approach;
this respect for the patterns building the universe must have grown from his
father’s influence during those formative years.
Hans left
Sigmaringen in the fall of 1911 to study at the Berlin Academy of Music. His
father died soon afterward, aged 57, saddened at the family’s dispersal and the
demise of the string quartet. Hans first studied composition with Engelbert
Humperdinck (whose teaching style he strongly disliked), then quickly
transferred to Stuttgart to study under Joseph Haas; but after a few months he
returned to Berlin, not to resume his studies at the Academy, but instead to
pursue private lessons. Thus, in April 1913, he began lessons with Arnold
Schönberg.
Schönberg, a
brilliant and highly demanding teacher, gave Hans Kayser an excellent
background in harmonics and composition theory, though they eventually
quarreled; Schönberg, despite recognizing his student’s great gifts, advised
Kayser that he should not become a composer since he was more of a philosopher
than a musician. Despite their differences, Kayser later remembered Schönberg
fondly, in particular the gift for painting that both men shared.
During his
initial period in Berlin, Hans had met his
future wife, Clara Ruda (1891-1979), the daughter of a distinguished furrier
who had fled illegally from Russia
in order to avoid the compulsory twelve years of military service. Clara was
studying singing, and Hans often accompanied her on the piano. They were
married in 1913, and the subsequent move to a larger apartment provided Hans
with a better environment for composing. Their first daughter Eva was born in
1914, followed by Ruth in 1916.
By this time
World War I had broken out, and Hans joined the army voluntarily, since this
meant he could choose which regiment to serve in; he chose one with barracks
near to his and Clara’s apartment in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. Kayser’s
military service was marked by a series of lucky and rather humorous accidents.
Shortly before his regiment was to be called into the field, he was assigned as
a bicycle infantryman; but he arrived late for training exercises, and was
therefore deprived of his bicycle. His pack was very heavy (since he had
brought so many books with him), and marching in the heat gave him tendon
inflammation and a dilated heart; he was declared unfit for service. He
returned to his studies, but was drafted again a year later. This time he was
set to digging trenches, and was soon called to the front: to Verdun, where he would likely have been among
the thousands who perished. But his head was too large for any uniform cap, so
he was left behind and dismissed four weeks later. He was called up once again
in 1917—by then he and Clara had moved from Berlin to Erlangen, in Bavaria—but
this time, he threw his rifle down in front of his entire company and declared
that he would not go on. Thanks to some strings pulled by his brother-in-law,
who was an officer, Kayser’s case was evaluated by a doctor with pacifist
inclinations, and after being placed under observation in an asylum for two
weeks, he was declared completely unfit for any kind of military service—and
could once more return to his studies.
Kayser then
studied art history with Prof. Hans Preuss, and wrote a dissertation drawing
parallels between Fra Angelico’s art and the Summa Theologica of
Antoninus Florentinus. Hans and Clara’s third child, Tobias, was born in 1918,
but tragically drowned at the age of two. By then, Kayser’s literary career had
begun: 1919 saw the publication of the first volume of Der Dom: Bücher
deutscher Mystik by Insel-Verlag, a collection of writings on mysticism by
authors including Johannes Kepler, Jakob Böhme, and Paracelsus, edited in part
by Hans Kayser. During this time, Clara assisted Hans with typing, and
translated some texts by Paracelsus into German.
Germany was ravaged by economic depression and hyperinflation during the
1920s. Hans, back in Berlin
at this point, undertook various projects to make ends meet, including playing
the cello and saxophone in a film orchestra (these being the days of silent
films). He bought a printing press in 1922, with which he produced various
small publications, mostly ephemeral; this project did not last long, but gave
him some experience in book design that he would have opportunities to use
later. Meanwhile, in his role as a father, Hans encouraged his daughters’
artistic inclinations and love of nature, much as his own father had done; they
went canoeing and swimming together, studied plants, collected rocks, and
explored the microcosm and macrocosm with the microscope and telescope.
Orpheus was published in 1926, followed by Der hörende Mensch ( The
Hearing Human) in 1932. Hitler was now on the rise to power, and some of
Hans’s writings had been suppressed because of his anti-Nazi sentiments. The
Kaysers’ financial situation was worsening, and had they remained in Germany, there
might have been great danger, since Clara was of Jewish descent. They were
saved by an unforeseen circumstance: Gustav Fueter (1889-1948), a prominent
Swiss businessman, wrote an eloquent letter to Hans, praising his book Der
hörende Mensch and expressing a desire to meet him; this was followed by
money to pay for a trip to Bern, where it was decided that Fueter would become
Hans’s patron, supporting him for two years.
Thus Hans and
Clara moved to the capital city of neutral Switzerland, establishing
themselves in a house Gustav Fueter had provided for them. Fueter, whose
fortune came from the menswear business, was passionately interested in all the
arts, and had strong philanthropic inclinations. Most importantly, he
believed—as did Kayser—that the development of harmonics as a science had the
potential to improve the human condition.
Hans Kayser
enjoyed a singular friendship with his first patron, instructing him in
harmonics even though Hans was not a born teacher, and undertaking works in
which the whole Kayser family was involved (most notably Blätter für
harmonikale Forschung, a 15-volume collection of essays distributed to a
very limited circle). However, the two men both had such strong personalities
that differences were bound to arise sooner or later, and Fueter ceased his
support in 1936. This left the Kaysers in a bind once again, until Clara,
through a professor at the University
of Bern, managed to get
Hans in contact with Hermann Rupf, another wealthy businessman with a strong
interest in the arts. Acquiring Rupf as a patron paved the way for the
publication of Vom Klang der Welt ( The Sound of the World, 1937),
Abhandlungen zur Ektypik harmonikaler Wertformen ( Essays on the
Ektypics of Harmonic Value-Forms, 1938), and Grundriss eines Systems der
harmonikalen Wertformen ( Plan for a System of Harmonic Value-Forms,
1938); these three books would form the major part of the foundation for Lehrbuch
der Harmonik ( Textbook of Harmonics, 1950, English translation
published 2006).
Kayser
continued to work under Rupf’s patronage during the war years, resulting in the
publication of Harmonia Plantarum (1943), dedicated to the memory of his
father and their botanical explorations; and the 2-volume set Harmonikale
Studien (Harmonic Studies, 1946-7). The Lehrbuch was the
culmination of his career, not only in its magnificently all-embracing content,
but also in its presentation; the original oversize edition, produced on
high-quality paper with multiple folding plates, was a testimony to Kayser’s
technical knowledge as a printer and his discerning taste in design.
Hans lost his
German citizenship in 1940, and was without a homeland until 1948, when he was
granted the rare privilege of becoming a Swiss citizen. After the first few
years in Switzerland life
became more stable; he and Clara were able to buy a house, then to sell it some
years later at a profit and build their own house in Bollingen, on the
outskirts of Bern.
The second house was tailored to Kayser’s work, with a large music room on the
ground floor.
In addition to
all his other interests, Kayser was an exceptionally avid model train builder
throughout his life, helping to found the Berner Modell-Eisenbahn-Club
(still in existence) and building model railways running through his garden. He
greatly preferred train travel to driving a car, which he first learned to do
in 1958 at the age of 67, and described to his daughter Eva thus:
“...It is
impossible. One sits upon a highly explosive substance, of which there will
soon be none left anywhere, as the oil runs out; one has metal over one’s head,
instead of the blue sky above; one must work with one’s hands and feet like a
crazy person, and look to the right with one eye and to the left with the other
at the same time...” (Ammann, pp. 56-57.)
Despite this,
he traveled extensively by car and by train in his later years, especially
around the Mediterranean. A trip to southern Italy in 1954 formed the basis for Paestum (1958), a
harmonic analysis of Grecian architecture that offers some astounding
revelations about the designs of ancient monuments, while at the same time
painting a moving and evocative picture of the harmonist’s solitary quest for
ancient knowledge. In Paestum, Kayser’s great learning and wisdom are
conveyed in a more fully matured style than ever before, making what would be
his final work—besides Harmonikale Symbolik, published posthumously—a
true masterpiece.
Hans Kayser
died peacefully from heart failure on April 14, 1964, after a relatively short
illness. He was 73. He was survived by his wife, two daughters, and five
grandchildren. He also left behind a library of approximately 4,500 volumes.
During his lifetime, Kayser authored a total of 15 books and 45 essays, as well
as 32 musical compositions.
The Kayser
gravestone, in the small Bollingen churchyard, bears the design of the harmonic
Lambdoma: rays of musical tones stretching from the origin out into the
infinite. The Hofapotheke in Sigmaringen can also still be seen today,
complete with the bay window added onto the building by Gustav Kayser; a
memorial plaque on the outside wall near the entrance shows Kayser’s profile.
And various groups, including the Sacred Science Institute in California and
the Kreis der Freunde um Hans Kayser in Switzerland, continue to
encourage the study of his work and develop it further.
REFERENCES
Ammann, Walter (ed.).
Hans Kayser: zum 100. Geburtstag am 1.
April 1991:
Biographische Fragmente. Bern:
Kreis der Freunde um Hans Kayser, 1991.
Haase, Rudolf.
Hans Kayser: Ein Leben für die Harmonik der Welt.
Basel: Schwabe
& Co., 1968.
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