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Monaco 23/3/1878 - Berlin 21/3/1934
Franz Schreker was the son of a
Hungarian photographer to the
Austro-Hungarian Imperial Court
whose antecedents were unclear.
Schreker himself believed his father
to have been Jewish although Franz’s
mother certainly was not, and Franz
himself was brought up a Catholic.
Born in Monaco but raised in
Austria, the family moved to Vienna
following his father’s death when
Franz was 10 years old, enabling him
to be educated in the prestigious
Vienna Conservatoire. He first
studied the violin and later, piano,
and then composition from
1893-1900.
Schreker achieved great success in
1908 with the premiere of his ballet
“der Geburtstag der Infantin and
four years later, his first opera
“Der Ferne Klang” established him as
one of the leading progressive
composers of his generation. In the
years following the first World War,
his operas dominated the German
stage, and he was the most produced
opera composer of his generation
second only to Strauß.
As his reputation as a teacher and
operatic composer grew, he was asked
to take over the direction of the
Musichochschule in Berlin in 1920.
He gathered together an illustrious
teaching staff including Artur
Schnabel, Carl Flesch and Paul
Hindemith and built the Hochschule
into one of the premiere music
educational establishments in
Europe. His own pupils included the
composers Max Brand, Berthold
Goldschmidt, Alois Haba and Ernst
Krenek and the conductors and
performers, Jascha Horenstein, Artur
Rodzinski, and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt.
Still at the height of his career,
Schreker was forced in 1932 by
political pressure to resign his
position at the Hochschule in
Berlin. He subsequently took up a
teaching position in the Prussian
Academy. In 1933 when racial laws
decreed that he be dismissed from
this position too, he wrote a
heart-rending letter to the director
of the Academy, Max von Schilling,
in which he begged for kind
consideration, noting his political
ambivalence, his Catholic
upbringing, his family’s loyalty to
the German State, his illustrious
career and recognition for his
services to his country and his lack
of financial stability. He had lost
his pension from Vienna when moving
to Berlin and the fortune he had
earned from his works had become
virtually worthless with the
economic collapse. Still with a
wife and two unemployed sons and his
brother to support Schreker was
brought to the brink of
desperation. He suffered a heart
attack shortly afterwards and died
just before his 56th
birthday. |
