Ernst Décsey

Ernst Décsey (formerly Ernst Deutsch , pseudonym: Franz Heinrich ; born April 13, 1870 in Hamburg ; † March 12, 1941 in Vienna ) was an Austrian writer and music critic .

Life

Ernst Décsey studied law in Vienna (Dr. iur. 1895) and at the same time completed training at the Conservatory of the Society of Friends of Music in the subjects of piano , harmony and composition .

From 1899 Ernst Décsey worked as a music critic for the Grazer Tagespost, in 1908 he became its editor-in-chief. From 1920 onwards he was appointed permanent music advisor for the Neue Wiener Tagblatt in Vienna, where he became the leading music critic of his time. When Austria was annexed in 1938, he was dismissed for racist reasons.

In addition to his journalistic work, Ernst Décsey also worked as a freelance writer and as a teacher of music history and aesthetics at the New Vienna Conservatory . Décsey wrote novels, short stories, plays and libretti.

He became known far beyond the borders of Austria, primarily through his musician biographies.

Ernst Décsey's remains were buried in Vienna's Hietzingen cemetery in an honorary grave (group 58, number 328).

Works

Novels and short stories

• Dear Vienna , Roman, 1911
• Cigarette smoke , short stories, 1911
• The island of seven dreams , A travel book, 1912
• The little Duke Cupidon , Roman, 1913
• The Theaterfritzl , Roman, 1915
• War in the Stone , Tales, 1915
• In the fire circle of the Karst , stories, 1916
• Unlucky Memoirs , Tales, 1917
• The city on the river , novel, 1918 (?)
• The Theater of Our Lady , Roman, 1927
• The music box , musicians anecdotes, 1928

Biographies

• Hugo Wolf - Life and Song , 1906
• Peter Rosegger , 1913 (?)
• Bruckner - Attempt at a Life , 1920
• Johann Strauss , 1922
• Franz Lehár , 1924
• Maria Jeritza , 1931
• Claude Debussy , 1936
• Debussy's works (from the estate), 1948

Plays and libretti

• The Musician of God (co-author: Victor Léon ), play, 1924
• Sissy's Brautfahrt (co-author: Gustav Holm, pseudonym for Robert Weil , also known as Homunculus ), comedy, 1931 (this comedy later became the template for the operetta Sissy )
• The Kathrin , libretto for the opera of the same name by Erich Wolfgang Korngold , 1937
• Die Dame im Traum (co-author: Gustav Holm), libretto for the opera of the same name by Franz Salmhofer , 1935

literature

• Decsey Ernst. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 173.
• Décsey, Ernst. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 5: Carmo – Donat. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-22685-3 , pp. 329-340.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Décsey in the catalog of the German National Library