Band master (“kapellmester”) and son of the royal music director Georg Kramm in Düsseldorf, where he received his first training to play violin and viola. Later he studied at the Düsseldorf conservatory and became the musical director of the municipal theater (“Theaterkapellmeister”) in Dortmund, before he went to Berlin (1908) to study at the conservatory. Here he joined the quartet of his teacher, Henri Marteau, and toured Russia, the Balkan, Turkey, Persia, France, Austria and Sweden (1913).
After having served at the front in WWI he came to Norway (1919), started as “Theaterkapellmeister” in Stavanger and moved to Bergen (1921), where he served as solo viola player and second bandmaster (Kapellmeister) of the Harmonien orchestra. He moved to Oslo to become the solo viola player for the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (1924-27) and took on responsibility as “kapellmeister” and musical director of the National Broadcasting Service (NRK) in 1927, beginning with 12 musicians. He kept close contact to the Philharmonic Orchestra and also promoted contemporary music, for example by Paul Hindemith. In conflict with NS-collaborator Edvard Sylou-Creutz he left the radio (1941). He kept performing in Oslo, for example with Robert Riefling and Amalie Christie. He was arrested on 21st May 1941 and questioned by the Gestapo (#1267) at Polizeigefängnis Møllergata 19 in Oslo where he was released on 28th May 1941. Directly after the war he returned to NRK.
