Philipp Jarnach was considered in the 1920s to be one of the most important composers of modern music.

Jarnach was the son of a Spanish sculptor and a Flemish mother. Until 1914 he lived in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he studied piano under Édouard Risler

Édouard Risler

Joseph-Édouard Risler was a French pianist.- Biography :Risler was born in Baden-Baden of a German mother and an Alsatian father. He studied under Louis Diémer, Théodore Dubois and Émile Descombes at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1883 to 1890...

 and harmony under Albert Lavignac

Albert Lavignac

Albert Lavignac was a French music scholar, known for his essays on theory, and a minor composer.-Biography:Lavignac was borin in Paris and studied with Antoine François Marmontel, François Benoist and Ambroise Thomas at the Conservatoire de Paris, where later he taught harmony...

 at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

. During the First World War he was a student of Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

 in Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

. He later completed the opera Doktor Faust

Doktor Faust

Doktor Faust is an opera by Ferruccio Busoni with a German libretto by the composer himself, based on the myth of Faust. Busoni worked on the opera, which he intended as his masterpiece, between 1916 and 1924, but it was still incomplete at the time of his death. His pupil Philipp Jarnach finished it...

which Busoni had left unfinished on his death in 1924.

In the 1920s Jarnach worked in Berlin as a pianist, conductor and composer. In 1927 he became a teacher in composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln

Hochschule für Musik Köln

The Cologne University of Music is a music college in Cologne, and Germany's largest academy of music.-History:The academy was founded by Ferdinand Hiller in 1850 as Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln...

. In 1949 he founded the Hamburger Musikhochschule (Hamburg Music Academy) which he directed until 1959 and at which he taught until 1970. Some of his students include Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

, Otto Luening

Otto Luening

Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....

, Wilhelm Maler, Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Bernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...

, Jürg Baur

Jürg Baur

Jürg Baur was a German composer of classical music.-Education:Baur was born in Düsseldorf, where he achieved early recognition as a composer at the age of 18, when his First String Quartet was premiered at the Düsseldorf Hindenburg Secondary School by the then-famous Prisca Quartet...

, Eberhard Werdin

Eberhard Werdin

Eberhard Werdin was a German composer and writer on music.He studied in Hanover, Bielefeld and Cologne, and then became a schoolteacher...

 and Nikos Skalkottas.

Jarnach composed a Sinfonia brevis, a prelude for large orchestra, a quartet and a quintet for strings, further chamber music, especially for violin and piano, and vocal works.