Hugo Kaun is considered a modern late Romantic and was a German composer, conductor and music educator. His works were held in the highest esteem in Germany and America. In Chicago, Kaun studied with the German-American music theorist Bernhard Ziehn, with whom Wilhelm Middelschulte also received his training. Later, like Middelschulte, he taught at the conservatory there. Until 1901, he worked as a music teacher, conductor and composer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and other places, and as founder and conductor of the Milwaukee Liederkranz and director of the festivals of the Northwest Sangerbund. From 1920 onwards, Kaun's compositional style changed markedly; these late works represent a sound and style symbiosis of Wagnerian expressivity on the one hand and elements of Impressionism on the other. Hugo Kaun's autobiography, published in 1932 (the year of his death), unfortunately contains only a few of his highly interesting travelogues, which served as a model for his two symphonic poems. Kaun's Third Symphony in E minor, op. 96, was composed in 1913 at a time when he again felt compelled to increase his income through teaching - concert revenues were not sufficient, and despite his admission to the Royal Academy of Arts, he did not obtain an adequately remunerated position at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin until 1922. He dedicated his Third to the conductor Robert Laugs, who conducted the premiere on 11 November 1914 at the Court Theatre in Kassel.
