Erwin Schulhoff
Recommended by Antonín Dvořák ERWIN SCHULHOFF (1894 Prague – 1942 Concentration Camp Wülzburg near Weissenburg/Bavaria) was accepted already at the age of 10 as a piano student at the Prague Conservatory. He continued his studies in Vienna in 1906 (with Willi Thern), Leipzig in 1908 (piano with Robert Teichmüller, composition with Stephan Krehl and Max Reger) and Cologne in 1913 (with Lazzaro Uzielli, Carl Friedberg, Franz Bölsche, Ewald Strasser, Fritz Steinbach). Passing his exams with distinction (Wüllner-Prize), he also won the Felix-Mendelssohn-Prize twice: as a pianist in 1913 and as a composer in 1918. After serving in the Austrian army during the war, he lived in Germany until 1923. There he devoted himself to the radical directions of the avant-garde (dadaism and jazz – he even composed a jazz-oratorio, HMS Royal Oaks and his most known work, the Hot Sonata) also being influenced by impressionism, expressionism and neo-classicism, one after the other or even in parallel. As a gifted pianist, he specialised in jazz and in the quarter-tone repertoire of Alois Hába and his pupils. Returning to Prague in 1923, he was very successful as a composer as well as an internationally appreciated pianist (particularly in Germany). Nevertheless he wasn’t able to continue his career in Germany after 1933. The Berlin world premiere of his opera Flammen was cancelled due to the political changes folowing the beginning of the Nazi regime. In the thirties abandoning a lot of things appreciated before, such as in particular the field of symphonic jazz, he then turned to writing symphonies in the style of socialistic realism. This sharply contrasted to his work for the Prague Radio in Ostrava, where he – being banned from profession since 1939 – continued to work under pseudonym as a jazz pianist. Having taken the soviet nationality in 1941 he applied for a visa to the Soviet Union in April. However, although the visa had been granted on 13 June, it was too late: Schulhoff, who due to Germany’s declaration of war to the Soviet Union had now become citizen of an enemy state, was interned in Prague on 23 June 1941 and deported into the Concentration Camp Wülzburg near Weissenburg/Bavaria, where he died on 18 August 1942. Schulhoff’s work includes an opera, ballets, six symphonies, numerous works of chamber music, solo works, concertos, songs and choral works.
Works (selection): 7 symphonies (1925, 1932, 1935, 1936-37, 1938, 1940-41, 1941), 2 string quartets (1924, 1925), Sonate for Violine und Klavier (1913), Sonate for Violoncello und Klavier (1914), Nine Little Round Dances for piano (1914), Five Grotesques for piano (1917), Sonate for piano (1918), Five Humoresques for piano (1919), Five Arabesques for piano (1919), Five Pittoresken for piano (1919), 32 Variations on an Original Eight-Bar Theme for orchestra (1919), Humanness. Five Poems by T. Daubler for alt and Orchestra (1919), Ironies. Six Pieces for Four Hands (1920), Partita for piano (1920), Suite for Kammerorchester (1921), Rag-music for piano (1922), Bass Nightingale. 3 Compositions for Contrabassoon Solo (1922), Konzert for Klavier und Small Orchester (1923), Duo for Violine und Violoncello (1925), Divertissement for Oboe, Klarinette, Fagott (1925), Sonate for Violine-Solo (1927), Sonate for Flöte und Klavier (1927), Cinq Etudes de Jazz for piano (1927), Esquisses de Jazz for piano (1927), Double concerto for Flute, Klavier und Orchester (1927), Hot Music. 10 synkopierte Etuden for piano (1928), Concerto for String Quartet and Wind Orchestra (1930), Hot-Sonate for Altsaxophon und Klavier (1930), Concerto for String Quartet and Wind Orchestra (1930), H. M. S. Royal Oak. A Jazz oratorio set to words by Rombach for reciter,jazz singer mixed choir and symphonic jazz orchestra (1930), Manifesto on words by Marx and Engels. A 13-voice cantata for four solo vioces, double mixed choirs, children s choir and wind orchestra (1932 – 1933) (under the title The Communist Manifesto)