Stephan Cosacchi

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Stephan Cosacchi , until 1949 István Kozáky (born July 5, 1903 in Budapest , Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary , † April 21, 1986 in Frankenthal / Palatinate ) was a German - Hungarian linguist and musicologist and composer .

family

Cosacchi was born to German-Hungarian parents. His father Gyula Kozáky worked as an engineer in Budapest, his mother Aloisia Janetschek was a pianist and piano teacher, her brother the composer Stephan Jaray-Janetschek . Until 1949 he carried the Hungarian name István Kozáky . On October 1, 1949, the district government of Bavarian Swabia approved the use of the Italian spelling Cosacchi , which refers to an ancestor from Italy . His son Aloys Cosacchi (* 1955) is a violinist with the Hof Symphony Orchestra and a music teacher.

education and profession

Cosacchi studied Germanic and Finno-Ugric linguistics and Hungarian literary history at the university in his hometown as well as in Vienna and Berlin . 1925, even before his 22nd birthday, he was with a thesis on the history of the dances of death , which he later became a multi-volume reference work (s. Section linguistic work continued writing), Doctor of Philosophy PhD .

Cosacchi received his habilitation in 1926 and taught German literary history as one of the youngest professors at the Theresian Academy in Vienna. In 1929 he moved to Budapest, where he taught German, Hungarian and music at the inner-city high school until 1939 . In 1939 he moved to the University of Szeged with the subject of literary history . His musical training as a composer, pianist and conductor took place at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest and also in Vienna and Berlin. He was shaped by personalities such as Béla Bartók , Zoltán Kodály and Ernst von Dohnányi .

When Soviet troops marched into Hungary towards the end of the Second World War in 1944 , Cosacchi fled and found refuge in Germany. After intermediate stops in Bavaria ( Grafenau , Füssen and Erlangen ) he came to the Palatinate , where he taught German and music as a grammar school teacher from 1951 in Speyer and from 1954 in Kusel . From 1959 until his death in 1986 he lived and worked in Frankenthal. There he was a music teacher at what is now the Albert Einstein Gymnasium until he retired .

meaning

Cosacchi's musical and linguistic oeuvre is regarded as qualitatively equivalent, even if the musical work is more extensive.

Musical work

Cosacchi's compositions include at least 151 documented works from songs to oratorios ; the city of Frankenthal even mentions the number of 253 compositions. His works have been performed by well-known musicians such as Ferenc Fricsay and Géza Anda, as well as orchestras. Cosacchi bequeathed the musical legacy to the Palatinate State Library in Speyer .

Cultural-historical work

Cosacchi's best-known work, which also deals with linguistic aspects, is his multi-volume standard work on the subject of the dance of death during the Middle Ages : Macabre dance . The dance of death in art, poetry and customs of the Middle Ages. Publisher Anton Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1965.

honors and awards
  • In its 1990 Festschrift, the Speyer grammar school at Kaiserdom honored Cosacchi as a former member of the faculty under the Latin title Exegi monumentum aere perennius (German: "I have erected a monument, more permanent than ore").

literature

  • Armin Angele: Stephan Cosacchi. Life, works and stylistic developments . Master's thesis at the musicological seminar at Heidelberg University. Heidelberg 1990.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Composition index by Stephan Cosacchi , Frankenthal 1974
  2. ^ City of Frankenthal (ed.): Notice board on Stephan-Cosacchi-Platz .
  3. ^ Association of Friends of the Gymnasium at the Kaiserdom (Speyer): Festschrift 1990. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 6, 2014 ; accessed on January 6, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Cosacchi, Stephan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Hungarian linguist, musicologist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1986
Place of death Frankenthal (Palatinate)