Josef Franz Georg Scheu

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Josef Franz Georg Scheu (born September 15, 1841 in Vienna ; † October 12, 1904 there ) was an Austrian musician and trade unionist. Like his brothers Andreas and Heinrich Scheu, he was active in the labor movement.

biography

Scheu initially worked as a choir singer in the Theater an der Wien and studied music at the Vienna Conservatory . In 1865 he accepted a position as horn player at the Burgtheater and had his first successes with his own compositions.

The “ Song of Work ” made him widely known . On February 6, 1868, a song board was founded in the Gumpendorf workers' education association . The 21-year-old engraver assistant Josef Zapf conveyed his ten-verse poem to the association, initially anonymously. Andreas Scheu performed it to his brother, who immediately set it to music. On the occasion of a workers' party for Ferdinand Lassalle on August 29, 1868 in the Zobel inn in Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus , it was premiered in front of around 4,000 guests.

In 1878 Josef Scheu founded the Vienna Workers' Singing Association and was also its director. In 1890 he was co-founder and choirmaster of "Freie Typographie". Since he also made it possible for women to participate, he created the first mixed workers' choir .

In 1880 he asked the people living in Stuttgart playwright and socialist Albert Dulk an opera libretto , "most like me would predict a fairy tale" . Dulk then wrote the "socialist opera" The Magic Forest . But neither Scheu nor Dulk found a consensus in their different ideas, so that Scheu finally refrained from performing his “debut opera”.

In addition to his musical activities, Scheu was also active at the union level. With the establishment of the “Wiener Musikerbund”, the first advocacy group for musicians, in 1872, he pushed through improvements in terms of wage and labor law. However, for this and for his other trade union and political activities, he was forced to retire from the Burgtheater in 1881 and arrested by the police. The musicians' association had already been officially dissolved in 1873.

From 1895 he wrote the music reviews for the Arbeiter-Zeitung . As a composer he wrote, among other things, popular battle songs for the workers at the time, including texts by his brother Andreas Scheu, who lived in England.

Sons

  • Robert Scheu (born July 11, 1873 in Schönau in Lower Austria , † January 25, 1964 in Vienna) was editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and worked on the “ Fackel ” and “ Simplicissimus ”. He worked as a writer, essayist and cultural politician.
  • Gustav Scheu (born October 7, 1875 in Vienna, † March 9, 1935 there) was a lawyer by profession. Politically, he was a city councilor in Vienna between 1919 and 1923. Gustav Scheu was married to the writer Helene Scheu-Riesz (1880–1970).
Georg Scheu's grave in Vienna's central cemetery

Honors

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herbert Steiner: The Scheu brothers. In: Archives for Social History. VI./VII. Volume, 1966/67, p. 454.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Shy, Josef Franz Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian composer
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1904
Place of death Vienna