Hans Ferdinand Redlich was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n classical composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

, musicologist and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

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Redlich's Continental Years

During his youth in Vienna, Redlich privately studied piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 with Paul Weingarten

Paul Weingarten

Paul Weingarten. Ph.D. was a Moravia-born pianist and music teacher.He studied Music History at the University of Vienna, where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1910.He studied music at the Vienna Conservatory...

 and harmony and counterpoint with Hugo Kauder

Hugo Kauder

Hugo Kauder was a mid-century Austrian composer, pedagogue, and music theorist who was born in Tovačov , Moravia . He defied the atonal trend of his generation with his uniquely harmonic, contrapuntal style...

. He was a student of Carl Orff

Carl Orff

Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...

 in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 after 1921. He was a university student in both cities and studied German literature and musicology

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

. Redlich served as répétiteur for the Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

-Charlottenburg

Charlottenburg

Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...

 city opera in 1924-1925 and as opera conductor for the Stadttheater Mainz

Mainz

Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...

 from 1925 to 1929. From 1929 until 1931, Redlich studied musicology at Frankfurt University and completed a dissertation on stylistic changes in Monteverdi's madrigals

Madrigal (music)

A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....

. From then until 1937, Redlich resided in Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

 as a composer and writer. He moved back in 1937 and, two years later, emigrated to Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

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Life in Great Britain

The thirty years Redlich spent in Great Britain were perhaps the most fruitful of all. In 1941 he founded the Letchworth Choral and Orchestral Society, which he led until 1955; at the same time he gave lectures for the Workers' Educational Association from 1941 to 1943 as well as for the Extra Mural Departments of the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham from 1942 to 1955. He taught music history at Edinburgh University from 1955 on, and in 1962 he became a professor of music at the University of Manchester, which awarded him an honorary Doctor of Music degree in 1967. Redlich was a major contributor to the New Oxford History of Music and the fifth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. In 1953 he was a member of the editorial board for the Hallischen Händel-Ausgabe. In 1966 Redlich was a founding member and the first vice president of the International Alban Berg Society of New York.

Books by Hans Redlich

• Monteverdi: Life and Works, London: Oxford University Press, 1952
• Alban Berg, the Man and His Music by H.F. Redlich. London: John Calder, 1957

Further reading

• Hartmut Krones, "Redlich, Hans Ferdinand," in Ludwig Finscher, ed., Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1994), s.v.
• Redlich contributed a volume to the Master Musician Series 1955: "Bruckner and Mahler", which was ground -breaking work in English. In the introduction he tells us he met Mahler as a child and his father was a friend of Mahler. Later he knew members of Mahler's family and published, from 1919 onwards, several studies in German of Mahler and his music. They are listed in the bibliography of the above mentioned book.