On the front-lineIt is remarkable how little has been written about this subject. Perhaps one simply did not wish to talk about this period, be it for psychological or for political reasons. We have to dig pretty deep in order to find just some basic information; some composers did leave written remarks about their wartime service: Josef Matthias Hauer in World War I, and Heinrich Gattermeyer (who died this year some days before his 95th birthday) in World War II. Robert Schollum served in the German Wehrmacht, after being wounded he was paymaster on the Russian front; Alfred Uhl, too, was conscripted to the Wehrmacht in 1940, but discharged in 1941 after being severely wounded.

Friedrich CerhaFriedrich Cerha could fill a whole documentary with his own war-time experiences. The 17-year-old composer was conscripted as a Luftwaffe helper in the Wehrmacht, but resisted, deserted twice and survived the war’s end in the mountains of Tyrol. In an in-terview with Dr. Ernst Löschner (which can be read in its entire-ty on …), Cerha talks about that time: ‘Even as a child I was in resistance to the ruling system, National Socialism. When a

SA man plucked my Jewish friend from our classroom, I bit his hand. At 17 I consciously resisted as a Luftwaffe helper with my anti-Nazi comrades by setting the director equipment so that the Nazis at the guns did not hit the enemy aircraft—they couldn’t shoot them down. We wanted to help shorten the war instead of prolonging it: a difficult choice for 17-year-olds, as the bombs did

Memorial Year 20181938—the ‘Anschluss’, the Kristallnacht—of course it is natural to recall the fates of the ostracized composers in memory of these horrible events; the article ‘What if …?’ in the last issue of the sound:files was dedicated to this subject. The opera ‘Zeichner im Schnee’ by Peter Androsch (who has his own article in the pre-sent issue) deals with the dramatic impact of World War I on artist Klemens Brosch, giving rise to the question: what happened to the composers who served in World War II? Which effect did the events of the war have on their lives, their compositions? In this case there is no question about the political aspects, but only about the influence on their lives and their activities as composers.

Composers in War Service or: Memorial Year 2018 - Change of Perspective

by Renate Publig

hit our home city and were able to hit our relatives.’His wartime experiences shape his musical works to the present day: ‘How does one conduct oneself in relation to the hierarchi-cal forms of order into which one is placed, to the things one is forced to do? How far does the individual have to adapt, how far can one resist?’, says Friedrich Cerha in an apt formulation about a fundamental problem of universal validity.

Paul KontIn vol. 29 of ‘Österreichische Musikedition’ (Verlag Lafite) about Paul Kont the biographical section was written by the composer himself; he dedicates a chapter to the war (p. 25 – 39). An excerpt from this highly readable and very moving document:

‘Only once the whistle of a bomb. I leap into a shelter made from concrete blocks. In the next moment tremendous noise, I am buried by the blown-up masonry. Dug out by my comrades and having regained my consciousness my head is pounding and my entire body is in pain. (…) The service was harsh: one time from midnight, then from 6 pm, then from 6 am; that is, never sleeping through an entire night. (…) But the idyllic life in the unharmed little town [Breckerfeld, Sauerland, Germany, ed.], well cared for by our hosts, repays us. For the Lutheran women’s choir there I wrote some clumsily modernist (harmony of fourths!) choral movements that provoked both admiration and dismay. In the Lutheran church I was allowed to work at the organ. (…)’

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Friedrich Cerha - 1935 and 2012

Paul Kont - 1943 and 1998 († 2000)

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Three composers suffered an especially grave fate: Friedrich Doppel-bauer, Helmut Eder, and Karl Schiske ended their wartime service as POWs.

Josef Friedrich DoppelbauerJosef Friedrich Doppelbauer had to join the army immediately after finishing his composition studies in 1940; he served in the war until 1946 before becoming a war prisoner in former Yugoslavia. He kept written notes for years and wrote letters home, but the correspondence broke off abruptly. Later, Doppelbauer talked to his sons about this time, and both the military post and his notes survive and are kept by

the family. These touching documents provide some insight into how people of that time were able to survive not only physically, but, above all, mentally. For our Spring issue Doppelbauer’s son Michael agreed to talk about the highly personal notes of his father, sharing a deep historical testimonial.

Helmut Eder Many people were torn from a life they would certainly have planned entirely different, so, e. g., Helmut Eder. Born on 26 December 1916 in Linz, he attended that city’s teachers’ training college from 1932 through 1937 and had intensive musical activities already at that time: he attended concerts and opera performances, received instrumental lessons, played in ensembles. He tried to self-educate himself in composing and wrote his first attempts, which he later destroyed. His plans of studying music after his Matura and his military service (which started in 1937) were upset by the outbreak of World War II. That only few records about his wartime deployment can be found is especially surprising when one stumbles across the record that he ‘was released from American war captivity’ in October 1945. How far music gave

Composers in War Service

him the impulse to leave these experiences behind must remain conjecture. It is a fact that he finally did manage to study at the Bruckner conservatory of Linz soon after his return from captivity, graduating (in conducting and music theory) in 1948. After the war, Helmut Eder brought a whiff of fresh air to Linz musical life with his concert series ‘Musica viva’.

Karl SchiskeIn the current biographical data of Karl Schiske, born on 12 February 1916 in Györ, Hungary, that is, in the same year as Helmut Eder, we at first only find the lapidary entry: 1940 ¬– 45 military service.Schiske was drafted into the German Wehrmacht in 1940, but at first, he was able to continue composing. Thus, he wrote his concerto for strings in 1941, in 1942 a dance rondo for large orchestra, commissioned by the ‘Großdeutscher Rundfunk’—who then rejected it due to ‘harshness of sound’. A year later, he composed the sona-ta for violin and piano, Op. 18, into whose central movement he introduced in a cantilena the old song of ‘Schnitter Tod’ (‘The Reaper Death’). Finally, Schiske became a prisoner of war in 1945 and was interned in a camp in Linz-Urfahr. After his release he was taken in by the mother of his friend and student Manfred Nedbal. In 1944 his brother Hubert was killed near Riga—this loss and his own experiences of war and captivity informed one of his major works, the oratorio Vom Tode (‘Of Death’), which he dedicated to his brother. In vol. 16 of the ‘Österreichische Komponisten des XX. Jahr-hunderts’ (published by Verlag Elisabeth Lafite Wien / ÖBV Wien), Erich Urbanner writes about his composition teacher Karl Schiske:‘With seriousness, mature knowledge and unbroken joy in creative success Schiske masters a new life. He does not evade suffering, he speaks of it in his works, when song, that is both pain and comfort rises above ostinato rhythms that seek to conquer the unavoidable. A higher reality that also transcends his own wartime experience now informs his idealistic realism that speaks from his choice of texts for his oratorio and from his music and with whose aid the pointlessness of a random death is overcome.’ Schiske died on 16 June 1969.

‘There must be more,’ was our first thought when we saw how little information was to be found about the subject ‘composers in times of war’. Time will show whether more testimonials from composers exist that sketch out a personal picture of their dealing and coming to terms with their wartime experiences.

J. F. Doppelbauer - 1935 and 1977 († 1989)

Helmut Eder - 1963 and 1992 († 2005)

Karl Schiske - 1933 and 1969 († 1969)

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