Stephan was born at
Worms,
Grand Duchy of Hesse, the son of the
privy councillor and politician who was also the head of the local Richard-Wagner-Verband. Stephan became a composition pupil of
Bernhard Sekles at the
Hoch Conservatory in
Frankfurt, and of
Rudolf Louis in
Munich, where he settled after completing his studies in 1908. He left only a few works: his liking for pointedly neutral titles along the lines of 'Music for ...' has caused him to be seen as a forerunner of the
'New Objectivity' of the post-war era, but his music is in fact in a hyper-expressive late-
Romantic idiom which has more plausibly been seen by some as a kind of proto-
Expressionism. His father was able to finance the performance of his early works, which at first met with incomprehension, but the premiere of his 1912
Music for Orchestra in Worms was a major critical breakthrough. He completed his only opera,
Die ersten Menschen, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. It was eventually premiered in Frankfurt, five years after the composer had been killed in action at
Chodaczków Wielki near
Tarnopol on the
Galician Front. His complete extant orchestral works were recorded by the
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Oleg Caetani. ==List of works==