Walter Braunfels (b Frankfurt, 19 Dec 1882; d Cologne, 19 March 1954) was an important composer in Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s until his music was banned as “degenerate” and he was branded a half–Jew.  Most famous as a composer of opera and oratorio, he also wrote several significant orchestral and chamber pieces. Largely thought of as a neo–Romantic composer in the tradition of Berlioz, Strauss, Wagner and Mahler, he considered his work to have a strong connection to antiquity, evident in his thematic and literary choices for pieces such as the opera Die Vögel, based on Aristophanes’ “The Birds.” (Alexander Waterman)