Erich Schenk

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Erich Schenk (born May 5, 1902 in Salzburg , Austria-Hungary , † October 11, 1974 in Vienna ) was an Austrian music historian .

Personal and scientific biography

Honorary grave of Erich and Margaretha Eleonore Schenk, Salzburg municipal cemetery (Rayon 110)

Erich Schenk studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum and then at the University of Munich , where he also received his doctorate in 1925. His habilitation followed in 1930 at the University of Rostock . From 1936 he headed the musicological institute at this university. After Robert Lach's retirement in 1940, Schenk followed him as a full professor at the Institute for Musicology at the University of Vienna. He was able to hold his own even after the end of the National Socialist rule and in 1946 was accepted into the Austrian Academy of Sciences . In 1950 he was elected Dean of the Philosophical Faculty and in 1957 he was elected Rector of the University of Vienna.

He earned his reputation as a musicologist a. a. as editor of the musicological series Monuments of the Tonkunst in Austria (DTÖ) and through his research on Viennese classical music and baroque music. Schenk has received numerous honors for his services to musicological research, such as the Great Silver Medal of the Republic of Austria . He also received honorary doctorates from the universities of Brno and Rostock . In 1966 he received the Wilhelm Hartel Prize , in 1970 the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art , and in 1971 he retired. Since 2003, the “Mozart Community Vienna” has been awarding a new prize to young musicians under the name “ Erich Schenk Prize ”. This was ordered by the musicologist's widow and replaces the interpretation prize previously awarded by the City of Vienna.

His grave is in the Salzburg municipal cemetery .

Anti-Semitism Erich Schenks

Brochure from Erich Schenk, a member of the NSD lecturer association

There is evidence that Schenk had been markedly anti-Semitic since the 1930s , an attitude that he did not correct until his death. On August 2, 1934, he became a member of the Nazi teachers' association , and later of the National Socialist German Lecturer Association . As a lecturer and temporary employee for the Rosenberg office , he was a spy by providing information about former Jewish musicology students. He also worked closely with Herbert Gerigk for the publication of his Lexicons of Jews in Music . Gerigk thanked Schenk warmly: "A thorough examination of the Viennese doctoral candidates [sic!] Would probably bring some fat Jews to light." Schenk had been released from military service because of his work in Rosenberg's "Sonderstab Musik" and was also active in Rosenberg's magazine Music in the war with.

In the biography of Johann Strauss (Sohn) , published in 1940 , which continues to be of great importance in Strauss research from a musicological point of view, every single Jew is meticulously identified and research results on the documented pathologies of Johann Strauss' by Ernst Décsey (and the beyond doubt based on the information provided by Strauss 'third wife Adele) as “autocratic interpretation” and “journalistic eloquence”, which did not appear in Strauss' life picture, “[...] until the Jew Decsey, after the World War, set about local and contemporary history support [...] ".

Schenk and the expropriation of the Adler Library

A particularly inglorious chapter in Schenk's biography is his role in the expropriation of Guido Adler's private library after his death in 1941. It is presented here in detail, as it is an example of the behavior of National Socialist musicologists during National Socialism. For decades, Schenk deceived the public and readers of the article written about himself in the encyclopedia Music in History and Present (MGG) by claiming that he had "saved the library from access by the Nazi authorities". It was only when a manuscript by Gustav Mahler , which was part of the library, was to be auctioned at Sotheby's in Vienna in 2000 that the "Causa Schenk-Adler Library" was examined more closely.

The librarian Yukiko Sakabe summarized the state of knowledge in 2004 and 2007. She speaks of the “confiscation of Guido Adler's library with the participation of university professor Erich Schenk”: “Immediately after Guido Adler's death, Schenk began to claim the library and Adler's academic legacy for himself or for the institute. Schenk informed the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education in Berlin in a report dated March 31, 1941 about his unauthorized seizure of the library. "The expropriation happened in several steps:

  • After the “unauthorized securing of the library” by Schenk, the Director General of the National Library Paul Heigl opposed in a letter dated May 5, 1941: “If I do not want to ignore the reasons given in your report above, I think especially with regard to this on any manuscripts, first prints and other Unica in the library Guido Israel Adler, a loyal division of the holdings between the Vienna National Library and your institute is appropriate. You therefore want to get in touch with the General Director of the Vienna National Library about such a situation. On behalf of signed Frey ”.
  • On May 6th and June 9th, 1941, two university professors, Leopold Nowak and Robert Haas , were present for a tour of Adler's library. Nowak was Schenk's assistant at the time. Haas headed the music collection of the Austrian National Library from 1920 to 1945. Melanie Adler writes: “The visit on Tuesday was forced on me by the lawyer [Richard Heiserer, the person who stole the Mahler manuscript, he was commissioned by Schenk], who got hold of the key to the library in my absence. He threatens the Gestapo in order to intimidate me and play the matter into the hands of the others. ”On June 9, 1941, Karl Borufka and Christian Nebehay from the Heck bookshop were present as experts. “Some objects weren't on their list. For example the manuscript of Gustav Mahler's song Ich bin der Welt got lost , another by Arthur Schnitzler and a death mask by Ludwig van Beethoven. In a report by Schenk to the Lower Austrian Financial Directorate after the war, it says that some mobile holdings, including Beethoven's death mask, were lost after a bomb attack on Liebiggasse or after fighting in April 1945 at the Musicological Institute. Hall and Köstner maintain that Schenk would have taken on the death mask before Borufka carried out his estimate. "
  • “Shortly after the second inspection, Melanie Adler announced her lawyer Richard Heiserer. Now attorney Johann Kellner should represent Melanie. Melanie Adler tried to sell her father's library to the Munich City Library. On August 6, 1941, she wrote to Rudolf von Ficker : 'The day before yesterday the lawyer […] was with the Gestapo for a whole morning. The library wants this for free, etc. also the apartment. '"
  • In October 1945 von Ficker wrote in a memorandum about the seizure of the Adler library: “During a visit to the musicology seminar on May 8 [1942] I happened to witness how Adler's library was there, including all personal documents and accessories was unloaded and stacked. Prof. Schenk, whom I did not know before, told me to clarify that Miss Adler had behaved very stupidly, that she had violated the law because she had protested against the confiscation of the library by the Gestapo. She had fled, but had already been found by the Gestapo and then it was: 'March to Poland!' "Adler's daughter, Melanie Adler was deported on May 20, 1942 and murdered on May 26, 1942 in Maly Trostinez .
  • Several institutes were interested in acquiring the estate: z. B. the National Library and the Society of Friends of Music's collections of manuscripts and unique items, the Municipal Collection of the City of Vienna on Wiener Musik, the Reich University of Music from the point of view of increasing its library, the Cultural Office of the City of Vienna (today the library of the music school of the City of Vienna), the Musicology Institute of the University of Vienna, and the general department for art funding in the theater studies collections for the archive. “On May 12, 1942, we visited and discussed the division of the collection together. Schenk justified his claim to Adler's library by stating that Guido Adler stole the books while teaching. Approximately three quarters of the existing book material can be addressed as the property of the Musicological Institute. According to the inventory, however, there was no evidence of the university's claim to ownership. "
  • In 1943 some of the books and sheet music from Adler's library were transferred from the Musicological Institute to the various institutions in Vienna. Finally, parts of Adler's library had to be ceded to the following institutions at the instigation of the Reichsgau Vienna: University library Vienna, library of the University of Music and Performing Arts, library of the Society of Friends of Music and the music department of the national library.
  • The split library was later returned to Adler's son Hubert-Joachim, who sold it to the University of Georgia.

Legal proceedings against Schenk

After the end of the Nazi state , a complaint against Schenk was filed with the American occupying power . Section head Otto Skrbensky in the Ministry of Education was in charge of the investigation. He denied all allegations against Schenk. Regarding the confiscation of Adler's library, he said: “Perhaps not in itself against Professor Schenk [to speak] , since it is in Austria's interest that this library be preserved in our fatherland”. Expropriation as an act of public welfare therefore appeared to Skrbensky to be an appropriate measure. On June 30, 1952, Federal Minister Ernst Kolb wrote to Schenk: "After a thorough examination of the events at the time, the Federal Ministry recognized these allegations as incorrect and determined your correct behavior when the university's musicological institute took over the library in order to secure assets".

After the Second World War

When Gösta Neuwirth began to work on Franz Schreker in the early sixties, Ordinarius Schenk dispatched him with the words: “I don't deal with Jews!”. A proceeding initiated against Schenk was discontinued in 1967 without result.

For geschichtsklitternden behavior Schenk also included that he's incurred during the Nazi writings on the occasion of the new edition of his selected essays, speeches and presentations adjusted and umfärbte.

Publications (selection)

  • Giuseppe Antonio Paganelli . His life and his works. In addition to contributions to the music history of Bayreuth. Dissertation 1925, Munich. Waldheim-Eberle, Vienna 1928.
  • Johann Strauss (son) , in the Herbert Gerigk series (ed.) Immortal Tonkunst , Athenaion, Potsdam 1940.
  • The Ahnenerbe , in: WA Mozart. For the Mozart Week of the German Reich in cooperation with the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and the Reichsstatthalter in Vienna , ed. v. Walther Thomas, Vienna 1941, pp. 16–22.
  • Mozart and the Italian Spirit , in: Spirit of Time. Essence and Shape of the Nations , Organ of the German Academic Exchange Service 19 (1941), pp. 580–590.
  • Music in Carinthia , in: Writings on the Klagenfurt University Weeks , Klagenfurt 1941.
  • Organizational forms of German community music , in: Musikverein für Kärnten. Festschrift 1942 , Klagenfurt [1942], pp. 58–63.
  • 950 years of music in Austria. 1946.
  • Little Viennese music history. Neff, Vienna 1947.
  • WA Mozart. Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna a. a. 1955. (Reprint Piper-Schott, Vienna-Munich 1989. ISBN 3-7957-8268-6 )
  • The Italian trio sonata . Das Musikwerk , Cologne 1955.
  • Selected essays, speeches and lectures (= Viennese musicological contributions 7), Graz 1967.
  • The non-Italian trio sonata. Das Musikwerk , Cologne 1970.

Editions (selection)

  • Franz Aspelmayr : Op. 1/4. Trio per due violini e basso continuo. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1954.
  • Giovanni Battista Bassani : Op. 5/9. Sonata a tre per due Violini e Basso continuo . Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1955/56.
  • Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber : Mensa sonora seu musica instrumentalis, sonatis aliquot liberius sonantibus ad mensam (1680). (Monuments of Tonkunst in Austria 96) Academic Printing and Publishing Company , Graz 1960.
  • Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Fidicinium sacroprofanum, tam choro, quam foro pluribus fidibus concinnatum et concini aptum (1683). (Monuments of Tonkunst in Austria 97) Academic Printing and Publishing Company, Graz 1960.
  • Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Sonata tam aris quam aulis servientes (1676). (Monuments of Tonkunst in Austria 106/107) Academic Printing and Publishing Company, Graz 1963.
  • Tomaso Albinoni : Op. 8 / 4a. Sonata da chiesa a tre. Per 2 Vl., Vc. e Bc Doblinger, Vienna a. Munich 1975.

literature

  • Theophil Antonicek , Rudolf Flotzinger , Othmar Wessely (eds.): De ratione in musica. Festschrift Erich Schenk on May 5, 1972. With bibliography. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1975, ISBN 3-7618-0420-2 .
  • Gerhard Oberkofler: Orchideenfächer im Faschismus , in: Yearbook of the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance 1990 , especially pp. 45–49.
  • Eva Weissweiler : Eliminated! The Lexicon of the Jews in Music and its Murderous Consequences. Dittrich, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-920862-25-2 , pp. 28 f., 71 f.
  • Tom Adler: Lost to the World. Self-published, o. O. 2000, ISBN 1-4010-8388-9 . (On the history of the Mahler autograph " I have lost the world ")
  • Matthias Pape: Erich Schenk - an Austrian musicologist in Salzburg, Rostock and Vienna. Music historiography between large German and small Austrian state idea. In: The music research . 53rd Vol. (2000), pp. 413-431
  • Alexander Pinwinkler : Erich Schenk (1902–1974) - a musicologist and Mozart researcher in the long shadow of the “Third Reich”, in: Alexander Pinwinkler / Thomas Weidenholzer (eds.): Schweigen undenken. The problem of National Socialism after 1945, Salzburg: Stadtgemeinde Salzburg, 2016 (= The City of Salzburg under National Socialism; 7), 388–431
  • Michael Staudinger: A "patricidal" project? On the history of Viennese musicology from 1920–1960. In: Dominik Schweiger, Michael Staudinger, Nikolaus Urbanek (eds.): Music science at its limits. Manfred Angerer on his 50th birthday. P. Lang, Frankfurt 2004, pp. 393-406
  • Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945. CD-ROM. Self-published, Kiel 2004, pp. 6070–6072.
  • Murray G. Hall / Christina Köstner: "... to get hold of all sorts of things for the national library ..." . Vienna: Böhlau 2006.
  • Uwe Harten : Schenk, Erich. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7001-3046-5 ., Pp. 2060 f.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carl Dahlhaus and Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht: Brockhaus Riemann Musiklexikon Volume 4 , 3rd edition, Schott Musik International, paperback edition 2001, ISBN 3-254-08399-7 , p. 104.
  2. ^ Vienna 1962, Web service of the City of Vienna
  3. ↑ Mozart Community Vienna History ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mozartgemeinde-wien.at
  4. ^ A b Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 . Kiel 2004, CD-ROM Lexicon, p. 6070f.
  5. ↑ Eva Weissweiler: Eliminated! The Lexicon of the Jews in Music and its Murderous Consequences . Dittrich, Cologne 1999, p. 71f.
  6. ↑ Gerhard Scheit: The most German of the sciences: About the special commands of German musicology . ( MS Word ; 30 kB) In: Konkret 8/2001 (accessed on September 2, 2009)
  7. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 519.
  8. ↑ Erich Schenk: Johann Strauss. In: Immortal Music. The life and work of great musicians . Edited by Herbert Gerigk, u. a. with the collaboration of Erich Schenk. Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, Potsdam, 1940 p. 105 ff.
  9. ↑ Article Schenk, Erich , written by Erich Schenk and Theophil Antonicek , in: Music in Past and Present Volume 11, First Edition 1963, Col. 1665.
  10. ↑ Yukiko Sakabe: Erich Schenk and the case of the Adler library . In: Music science at its limits , Frankfurt: Lang 2004, pp. 383–392.
  11. ↑ a b c d Yukiko Sakabe: The library of Guido Adler . In: Mitteilungen der Alfred Klahr Gesellschaft , Volume 2007 No. 1 (March), pp. 10–13. Available as a pdf
  12. ↑ Portrait of Melanie Karoline Adler, student at the University of Innsbruck, see: [1] , accessed on August 27, 2017.
  13. ^ Rudolf von Ficker: Memorandum , Igls near Innsbruck, on October 29, 1945; in the donation estate of the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien and in the Wellesz estate of the music collection of the ÖNB; Quoted in full by Gerhard Oberkofler: Orchideenfächer im Faschismus , in: Yearbook of the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance 1990 , pp. 45–49, here pp. 47–49. See also Renate Erhart: Melanie Karoline Adler (1888–1942) (accessed on February 13, 2012)
  14. ↑ Entry for Melanie Adler in The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names
  15. ^ Staudinger: On the history of musicology at the University of Vienna in the years 1938–1945. In: Music in Vienna 1938–1945 (edited by Carmen Ottner ). Vienna, 2006. p. 247.
  16. ↑ Murray / Köstner: "... to get hold of all kinds of things for the national library ..." , p. 297. Quoted from: Yukiko Sakabe: The library of Guido Adler . In: Communications from the Alfred Klahr Society , year 2007 No. 1, p. 12.
  17. ↑ Musikfreunde archive, donation estate
  18. ↑ music austria
  19. ↑ see Pape: Erich Schenk , passim
  20. ^ Inscription Deutschordenshof, Singerstraße: Erich Schenk 1955 (accessed on June 11, 2014)
personal data
SURNAME Schenk, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian music historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Salzburg
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1974
Place of death Vienna