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ABSTRACT
Hugo Kauder, born in 1888 near Prague, composer, instrumentalist, theoretician and music-philosopher, came to Vienna in 1905, left Austria after the Novemberpogrom 1938 and reached New York via the Netherlands and England in 1940. In 1938 Tel Aviv was also one of his intended havens (parts of Kauder's estate are kept at the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem). Engaged in the crisis discourse in Vienna's postwar period of the early 1920s, Kauder drafted his philosophical ideas under the influence of Friedrich Schelling and Friedrich Nietzsche, also speculating on music-teleology, mysticism and cosmology. Corresponding with the German philosopher Rudolf Pannwitz, with the authors Karl Wolfskehl and Erich von Kahler, Kauder expressed his Jewishness – much more as a mindset than an active Jewish identity. Coming from a system of transcendental and natural philosophy combined with Christian ideas, Kauder moved to a more complex syncretism also reflecting on Jewish topics. Kauder did not organize his ideas into a concept, they are, rather, the theoretical framework of his educational books and are widespread in his essays and letters.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Karin Wagner studied piano at the Bruckner Conservatory Linz and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. There she received her diploma with honour and distinction from the Ministry of Sciences. She teaches piano as well as courses related to piano at the Vienna Music University (Institute Ludwig van Beethoven, “Tasteninstrumente in der Musikpädagogik”). Her dissertation was in the field of Musicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Institute for Music History. Beside other publications Karin Wagner wrote the first German language biography of Eric Zeisl, “Fremd bin ich ausgezogen,” (Vienna 2005, Czernin), and edited the Zeisl-correspondence “ … es gruesst Dich Erichisrael” (Vienna 2008, Czernin). In 2012 Karin Wagner was awarded the “Elfriede Grünberg Preis” to honour her scholarly work.
Notes
1. Register of births, Jewish community in Přerov, 8. 3. 1848 – year 1888 – p. 62 – no. 294. Národní archiv/Nationalarchiv, Prag, register NA, HBNa, no. 2153.
2. Helen Kauder, Hugo Kauder's granddaughter living in the USA, remembers that her grandfather was completely secular, and that she never saw him observe a Jewish holiday or go to the synagogue.
Helen Kauder, e-mail to Karin Wagner, 16 February 2015.
3. Egon Lustgarten, composer and music pedagogue, studied at the Academy of Music in Vienna (with Richard Heuberger and Franz Schalk) and musicology with Guido Adler. He taught theory and composition at the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien. In 1938 Lustgarten emigrated to the USA, he was head of the music department at the Edgewood High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, and teacher at the Master Institute for United Arts in New York. In 1953 Lustgarten returned to Vienna.
Karl Weigl, composer and music pedagogue, studied composition with Alexander Zemlinsky and Robert Fuchs, and musicology with Guido Adler. From 1918 to 1928 he was teacher for composition, harmony and counterpoint at Neues Wiener Konservatorium, from 1929 to 1933 he worked at the University of Vienna. In 1938 Weigl emigrated to the USA and taught at conservatories and music schools in Hartford (Connecticut), Brooklyn (New York), Boston (Massachusetts) and Philadelphia (California).
4. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 8 October 1919, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
5. Hans Ferdinand Redlich, musicologist and composer, pupil of Paul Weingarten and Kauder, studied musicology and German philology in Vienna and Munich. He also studied composition with Carl Orff. Redlich worked as répétiteur in Berlin and conductor at the opera in Mainz. From Germany he returned to Austria in 1937, 1939 he emigrated to Great Britain, there he worked at the University in Cambridge and in Birmingham, later in Edinburgh and Manchester.
6. Lustgarten wrote for Musikblätter des Anbruch: Philosophie der Musik: 1919: Part I “Metaphysischer Sinn der Musiktheorie.” Musikblätter des Anbruch 1 (1): 2–6. 1920: Part II: “Der Urton.” Musikblätter des Anbruch 2 (3): 93–96.
7. Gustav Mahler in a letter to Anna von Mildenburg (18 July 1986):
Meine Symphonie wird etwas sein, was die Welt noch nicht gehört hat! Die ganze Natur bekommt darin eine Stimme und erzählt so tief Geheimes, das man vielleicht im Traume ahnt! Ich sage Dir, mir ist manchmal selbst unheimlich zumute bei manchen Stellen, und es kommt mir vor, als ob ich das gar nicht gemacht hätte. (Schreiber 1992, 69)
[My Symphony will be something that the world has never heard before! In this score, all nature speaks and tells such deep secrets as one may intuit in a dream! I tell you, at certain places in the score, a quite uncanny feeling takes possession of me, and I feel as if I had not created this myself.]
8. The prestigious “Kunstpreis der Stadt Wien” was awarded in the categories poetry, music and visual arts. In 1927 Josef Matthias Hauer (1883–1959) and Joseph Marx (1882–1964) were honoured. The jury in 1928: Anton Webern (1883–1945), Karl Weigl and Friedrich Wührer (1900–1975); Hans Pless (1884–1966), Friedrich Reidinger (1890–1972) and Hugo Kauder were honoured in 1928 (Ott Citation1968, 26).
9. Programme: “Arbeiter-Sinfonie-Konzert,” Grosser Musikvereinssaal, 13/14 February 1926. (Israel–Library Jerusalem, Musicdepartment, Mus. 47, Hugo Kauder Archive: 5. Public Performances 1917–1939).
David Joseph Bach, director of the Sozialdemokratische Kunststelle, developed a dynamic programme of cultural events as an integral part of the idea of socialist reconstruction in “Red Vienna.” Bach was made responsible for the literature and art section of the Arbeiter-Zeitung in 1917. When the Social Democrat Party came to power in 1919, Bach became politically influential. Because of the participation in the Wiener Musikfeste and his writing for Kunst und Volk (David Joseph Bach's journal of the Sozialdemokratische Kunststelle), Kauder was in contact with Bach's circle.
10. In concert XXIV (June 1919) of the first year of the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen (29 December 1918–28 November 1919) Kauder participated as violaist at the Konzerthaus under Schoenberg's baton in Igor Strawinsky's Pribaoutki (1914).
(Wien, Konzerthaus, Archiv. Accessed April 21, 2014. http://konzerthaus.at/archiv/datenbanksuche/).
Concert X (February 1919) and concert XI (März 1919) had Karl Weigl's First String Quartet.
If Weigl's suggestion for the choice of musicians was realized, Kauder played the Viola d'amore in Weigl's quartet: Karl Weigl to Hugo Kauder, 23 November 1918 (ÖNB, Musiksammlung, F 34. Fickert 1205).
11. Julis Chajes, pianist and composer, nephew of Zwi Perez Chajes, who was Chief Rabbi in Vienna (1918–1927), was born in Lemberg and lived in Vienna since 1920. Julius Chajes was later in exile in Tel Aviv, there he worked as a piano teacher at the Conservatory. He then became Director of Music at the Jewish Community Center in Detroit. He intensively adapted Kauder's theory of scales and systems of counterpoint.
Eric Zeisl, composer, pianist and pedagogue, was part of the closer circle of Hugo Kauder since the beginning 1930s. Zeisl was influenced by Kauder's philosophical-aesthetic thoughts, including echoes of Gustav Mahler and Friedrich Nietzsche. Kauder's scale theory, his technique in counterpoint, his Lieder, choral and string quartet-compositions influenced Zeisl. In 1931 Kauder's philosophical impact is evident: Zeisl set songs after Nietzsche. Eric Zeisl left Vienna after the Novemberpogrom (“Kristallnacht”) in 1938. He fled to Paris and left Europe shortly before the outbreak of Second World War. After exile in New York Zeisl moved to Los Angeles to work in the movie business. He later taught at the Los Angeles City College. With his Requiem Ebraico (1944/1945) he wrote one of the first pieces in commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust. Since his exile he represented works in quasi “Jewish idiom.” In 1965 Eric Zeisl's daughter Barbara (*1940) married Arnold Schoenberg's son Ronald (*1937).
12. In Austria “Kristallnacht” is not used as it is a term of National Socialism, instead of this “Novemberpogrom” is preferred.
13. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 24 February 1921, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
14. The descending tetrachord, a series of four specific tones spanning the interval of a perfect fourth, was the basic unit of the Greek scale system. Different kinds of tetrachords, defined by the position of the semi-tone, were conjoined to construct a scale.
15. The intersection C yields g, a, b, c, d, e and f combined with f, e flat, d flat, c, b flat, a flat and g.
16. Information from Norman Dee (President of the Hugo Kauder Society), e-mail to Karin Wagner, 19 February 2015.
17. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 3 January 1920, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
18. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 8 October 1919, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
19. Programme: “Makkabäerfeier,” 2 December 1937. Speaker: Oskar Grünbaum; conductor: Kurt Fuchsgelb; “Lichterzünden:” Gerson Margulies; reading: Jakob Feldhammer; voice: Sarah Goldstein; piano: Robert Walter Spitz; violin: Liselotte Markus; tenor: Albert Feller; organ: Sigmund Löwenherz; direction: Martin Tossi. (Wien, Konzerthaus, Archiv. Accessed April 21, 2014. http://konzerthaus.at/archiv/datenbanksuche/).
20. Engelszene (Jakobs Traum) and Hatikvah found no entry in Kauder's catalogue of works. Otto S. Kauder: Hugo Kauder – Werkverzeichnis. New York 1975. Archive Hugo Kauder Society, New Haven (CT).
Israel–Library Jerusalem, Musicdepartment, Hugo Kauder Archive: 1. Catalogue of works [Ms.], Sign.: Mus. 47.
21. Karl Wolfskehl to Hugo Kauder, 13 June 1935 and 8 January 1936; Hugo Kauder to Karl Wolfskehl, 17 June 1935, DLA Marbach, no. 78.639,5.
Kauder collaborated on the edition of Nijland–Verwey, ed, Wolfskehl und Verwey, 1968.
22. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 23 October 1937, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
23. Ibid.
24. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 25 November 1933, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
25. Between 1921 and 1926 he wrote Lieder und Sprüche Zarathustras with the parts Ecce homo, Zarathustras Nachtlied, Wirf dein Schweres in die Tiefe, Oh Einsamkeit, Jenseits des Nordens, Venedig and Dies allein. Between 1922 and 1934 he wrote the six songs Hälfte des Lebens with Der Tag klingt ab, Der Herbst and Der Skeptiker spricht after Nietzsche. 1933 Kauder set Die Sonne sinkt for alto, tenor, bariton, choir and orchestra, Das trunkene Lied of Zarathustra was basis for an undated choral composition.
26. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 27 November 1928, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
27. Ibid.
28. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 8 November 1919, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
29. Beginning with Die Krisis der europäischen Kultur (published in 1917, written December 1915 until summer 1916) and followed by Deutschland und Europa: Grundriss einer deutsch-europäischen Politik (1918), Europäisches Zeitgedicht (1919), Die deutsche Idee Europa (1931) or Beiträge zu einer europäischen Kultur (1954).
30. Richard Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi was the founder of the “Pan-Europa”-movement, in 1923 he wrote the book Pan-Europa, in 1924 he founded the “Paneuropa-Union,” the first European unity-movement.
Edvard Beneš (1884–1948) was President of Czechoslovakia (1935–1938, 1945–1948; 1940–1945 President in exile), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1918–1935) and Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia (1921–1922).
31. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 29 April 1923, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
32. Ibid.
33. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 12 June 1938, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
34. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 11 October 1938, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
35. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 20 October 1938, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
36. Through Pannwitz's relations to the cultural circle of Stefan George, Kauder was in contact with the writer Albert Verwey.
37. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 29 January 1940, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.
38. Hugo Kauder to Rudolf Pannwitz, 25 March 1938, DLA Marbach, P–6, P–6–2.