Heinrich Damisch

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Heinrich Damisch (born November 30, 1872 in Vienna , † 1961 ) was an Austrian music writer.

education

Heinrich Damisch was born the son of a general. He graduated from the Theresian Military Academy , the geodetic school at the Imperial and Royal Military Geography Institute and the Export Academy . He then studied piano, music theory and composition. He had to give up his career as an officer due to an eye disease. From 1904 on he was a member of a German national anti-Semitic student union.

career

From 1907 he worked as a music editor and music consultant. In 1913 he founded the Vienna Academic Mozart Congregation as an association and was a member of it until 1945 as head (own name). He succeeded relatively quickly in establishing this association as a universally recognized Viennese music institution. Under Damisch, the Mozart community developed a lively concert activity; efforts were made, among other things, to the performance of rarely performed Mozart works.

Salzburg Festival

Damisch developed the plan for the Salzburg Festival Hall, founded in Vienna on August 1, 1917 , together with Friedrich Gehmacher, and headed it as a managing director until they moved to Salzburg in 1925. Damisch "gave the impetus to found the Salzburg Festival ". He was a specialist music advisor in the National Socialist German Cultural Association .

In 1923 he was completely blind.

International Society for New Music

In 1922/23 he founded the International Society for New Music with Rudolph Reti and was its president until they moved to London.

Damisch was editor of the General German Singers Calendar from 1926 to 1932 and the Vienna Mozart Almanac for 1931 and 1941. Since May 31, 1932 Damisch was a member of the NSDAP . His “contributions against 'the Jewish corruption of everything musical' make him a trailblazer for National Socialist ideas”.

In 1939/40 Damisch adapted the statutes of the Vienna Academic Mozart Community to the wishes of the Nazi rulers. In 1941 the 'Mozart Week of the German Empire' took place in Vienna with Joseph Goebbels as the keynote speaker.

post war period

In 1945 Damisch fled from the invasion of the Red Army to Salzburg , where he spent the rest of his life. The Vienna Academic Mozart Community Association existed until 1948, when Hans Pemmer announced his voluntary dissolution as a board member. At the same time, a new association called Mozartgemeinde Wien was formed in 1947 with Erik Werba as headmaster, which is still in existence today.

Honors

Memorial plaque of the Mozart community

According to Kretschmer's investigations, Heinrich Damisch was honored before and after 1945. A street in the Parsch district of Salzburg has been named after him since 1963.

literature

  • Robert Hoffmann: Who was Heinrich Damisch? Attempt at a biographical approach. In: Cornelia Szabó-Knotik, Barbara Boisits (eds.): Musicologica Austriaca 27 (2008). Annual journal of the Austrian Society for Musicology 2009, pp. 181–209.
  • Helmut Kretschmer: An association serving Mozart. 100 years of the Mozart community in Vienna , in: Wiener Geschichtsblätter . Edited by the Association for the History of the City of Vienna, supplement 1/2013 , ISSN  0043-5317 , 24 pages

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Helmut Kretschmer: An association in the service of Mozart. 100 years of the Mozart community in Vienna , in: Wiener Geschichtsblätter . Edited by the Association for the History of the City of Vienna, supplement 1/2013 , ISSN  0043-5317 , 24 pages
  2. ↑ Heinrich Damisch's 85th birthday , Vienna City Hall Correspondence November 1957
  3. ^ Inscription Deutschordenshof, Singerstraße: Heinrich Damisch 1952 (accessed on June 12, 2014)
personal data
SURNAME Damisch, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian music writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 1961