Joseph Laska

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Joseph Julius Laska , actually Joseph Julius Reitinger , later Joseph Reitinger-Laska (born February 13, 1886 in Linz , † November 14, 1964 in Vienna ) was an Austrian composer and conductor. He is considered a pioneer of orchestral music in Japan.

Life

Early years

Joseph Laska's mother, Rosa Reitinger, was a 16-year-old singer at the Linz Theater when she became pregnant with Joseph. The illegitimate father was married Julius Laska, theater director and director, who worked in the same house. After more than 20 years, the latter recognized paternity, so that in 1908 his son was allowed to change his surname to Reitinger-Laska. As an artist, he called himself Joseph Laska.

In 1907, at the age of 21, Josef Reitinger began to study at the Royal Academy of Music in Munich, where he composed songs in a late romantic expressionist style, similar to works by the young Schönberg. He found his first job as a répétiteur in the municipal theater of Teplitz-Schönau (Teplice) in Bohemia and then moved from season to season to other houses in the K and K monarchy , presumably conducting from 1911.

During the First World War he was sent to the Russian front as reserve lieutenant from his theater position in Prague in the summer of 1914, was taken prisoner in 1916 and spent the next few years in Siberian camps until he succeeded in finding a ship on the Russian east coast in 1923 To climb Yokohama , where he first experienced the consequences of the Great Kanto earthquake in early September .

Work in Japan (1923–1935)

During his 12 years in the cities of Kobe and Takarazuka in Japan, Laska founded a symphony orchestra with professional musicians and premiered Anton Bruckner's symphonies in Japan from 1931 to 1935 . His name is connected to the Takarazuka revue theater and he also worked as a piano teacher, which, in addition to his work as a conductor, gave him further influence on musical life. Laska's life and career in Japan ended abruptly when he was banned from entering the country in 1935 after returning from a conference in Moscow.

From 1935 to 1964

During the National Socialist era , Laska first lived in Vienna again, where he was interrogated three times by the Gestapo (1938, 1939 and 1941), but was then sent by the National Socialists as a piano player on KDF tours, including to Thessaloniki . During one such trip to Romania in 1941 Laksa met his future wife Ellen - they married in February 1942. In November 1942 Laska was sentenced to five years in prison under Section 80, Hostile Propaganda Activity, and Section 83, High Treason, and his civil rights were given to him denied. A 60-page notebook with the title "My Sorrows from September 1942 to June 1945" has been received from Laska, the first 30 pages of which are entitled "Greece (1941)".

Even after 1945 Laska continued to compose songs against the war, such as "The Children in Korea" on the occasion of the beginning of the Korean War in 1950 . Laska also set haikus to music . A few concert evenings are documented in which Laska accompanied singers on the piano. In November 2014, a concert in memory of Laska was held in Kyoto.

His son Joseph Reitinger-Laska was born in 1947.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kazumi Negishi: Joseph Laska (1886–1964). An Austrian composer and conductor in Japan . Böhlau, Vienna 2014, foreword, p. 20.
  2. ↑ Kazumi Negishi: Joseph Laska (1886–1964). An Austrian composer and conductor in Japan . Böhlau, Vienna 2014, foreword, p. 1.
  3. ↑ ヨ ー ゼ フ ・ ラ ス カ . (No longer available online.) 京都 府 民 ホ ー ル ALTI , 2014, archived from the original on March 29, 2015 ; Retrieved March 7, 2015 (Japanese).
personal data
SURNAME Laska, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Laska, Joseph Julius (full name); Reitinger, Joseph Julius (real name); Reitinger-Laska, Joseph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian composer and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1964
Place of death Vienna