Franz Salmhofer

Franz Salmhofer, 1953

Franz Salmhofer (born January 22, 1900 in Vienna ; † September 22, 1975 in Vienna ) was a multiple award-winning Austrian composer , conductor and poet .

life and work

Salmhofer was born in Vienna and came from a modest background. His father was a pianist and his mother a cook. His father became disabled after his military service in World War I , which is why his son had to use his musical talent to help with the financial support of the family. Salmhofer was trained from 1909 to 1914 at Admont Abbey in Styria , where he was a choirboy . In 1916 he was a student at the Institute for Musicology at the University of Vienna, where he studied musicology , clarinet and composition with Franz Schreker , Franz Schmidt and Guido Adler . He was part of a very notable class that included talents like Ernst Krenek , Wilhelm Grosz , Karol Rathaus , Josef Rosenstock , Max Brand , Friedrich Wilckens , Paul Pisk and Jascha Horenstein . He then worked as a choir director and organist.

From 1929 to 1945 Salmhofer was Kapellmeister at the Burgtheater. At the time of the Austro-Fascist corporate state he was a member of the Fatherland Front . In 1934 he became a member of the NSDAP, which was illegal in Austria at the time . When Salmhofer applied for official NSDAP membership after the annexation of Austria in 1938, his membership in the fatherland front was viewed as negligible, but he was ultimately not accepted into the NSDAP due to the status of his wife as a Jewish half-breed . This non-membership in the NSDAP was beneficial to his career after 1945.

From 1945 to 1954 Salmhofer was director of the Vienna State Opera , then at the Volksoper in Vienna (1956 to 1963). Salmhofer composed mainly stage works that were based on the tradition of late Romanticism, but with the Heiteres Herbarium after Karl Heinrich Waggerl z. B. also a setting of contemporary poetry. Three of his operas were performed at the Vienna State Opera:

• Die Dame im Traum (Libretto: Ernst Décsey , Gustav Holm ), conductor: Josef Krips , director: Lothar Wallerstein , world premiere on December 26, 1935 (9 performances)
• Iwan Sergejewitsch Tarassenko (based on his own libretto), conductor: Josef Krips , director: Erich von Wymetal , world premiere on March 9, 1938 (34 performances)
• The advertising dress , conducted by the composer, staged by Alfred Jerger , May 29, 1946 (20 performances in the Volksoper building)

His grave of honor is in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 32 C, number 41). In 1989 in Vienna- Liesing (23rd district) the Salmhoferstraße and in 1998 in Vienna- Alsergrund (9th district) the Franz-Salmhofer-Platz was named after him.

Franz Salmhofer's grave

Awards

• 1926 and 1960 Prize of the City of Vienna for Music
• 1937 Grand Austrian State Prize for Composition
• 1954 Karl Renner Prize
• 1960 Silver medal for services to the State of Vienna
• 1965 Gold Medal of Honor of the Federal Capital Vienna
• 1970 Ring of Honor of the City of Vienna
• Honorary title ' Professor ' and honorary member of the federal theater

Web links

• Works by and about Franz Salmhofer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Opera director Franz Salmhofer

Footnotes

1. ↑ Michael Kraus. The musical modernity at the State Operas of Berlin and Vienna 1945–1989 . Stuttgart: Metzler, 2017. p. 251.
2. ↑ Wiener Rathauskorrespondenz, December 13, 1954, sheet 2165
3. ↑ Vienna City Hall Correspondence, January 15, 1955, page 56