Emil Hertzka
Emil Hertzka ( born August 3, 1869 in Budapest, † May 9, 1932 in Vienna) was from 1907 to 1932 director of the Viennese music publisher Universal Edition.
Life
Emil Hertzka first studied chemistry and besides music and literature at the University of Vienna until he had to give up the study of chemistry for health reasons. In 1893 he began to work at the music publisher Josef Weinberger, then was Director of the publisher Gustav Lewy & Co and moved in 1901 to the established in the same year music publisher Universal Edition AG ( UE), a public company, in which besides Josef Weinberger among others, the music publisher Bernhard Herzmansky ( Doblinger) involved. 1907 Hertzka became director and remained there until his death in 1932. Had the UE in the first years of a more traditional and classic publishing program, the UE was under his direction, one of the most important publishers of contemporary European music and therefore created the company to to the present time.
In 1909 he completed the first contracts with contemporary composers, with Gustav Mahler, Franz Schreker and Arnold Schoenberg, whose opera The distant sound was the first stage work of the UE. He also took over a large part of the works of Anton Bruckner from the publisher Albert J. Gutmann. Gradually, he was able at that time the most important living composers, such as Karol Szymanowski, Franz Schmidt, Egon Wellesz, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Alexander Zemlinsky, Alfredo Casella, Leoš Janáček, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Ernst Krenek Josef Matthias Hauer, Darius Milhaud and Gian Francesco Malipiero bind to the publisher.
But even with the sheet music, he broke new ground: in 1912 they worked in publishing in the publication of the splendor Edition " classics of music ." From 1919 to 1938, the publisher announced the 1894 -founded series of " Monuments of Music in Austria " and assisted them with the editor Guido Adler to the 83 band in 1938. A further innovation was the division book publishing where, alongside individual music-theoretical publications as the " harmony " of Schoenberg or the factory analyzes of Woss and Specht, important periodicals appeared: the " music sheets of the dawn " (1919-1937) or " desk and baton " ( 1924-1930 ).
At the time of Hertzka death, he died after a short illness of heart disease, the publisher's catalog comprises some 10,000 titles. His grave is in the cemetery Döblinger ( Israelite department, group I4, Series 3, No. 1A).
In memory of Hertzka an annual composition prize was awarded from 1933 to 1937. His wife Yella Hertzka (1873-1948), née Fuchs, led the publisher after his death until the annexation of Austria in 1938, after returning from forced exile from 1946 until her death.
In 1959 ( 10th District ), the Emil Hertzka square was named after him in Vienna favorites.