Mátyás Seiber

Mátyás György Seiber [ ma ː ca ː ʃ ʃaibɛr ] ( born May 4, 1905 in Budapest, † September 24, 1960 in the Kruger National Park in South Africa) was a Hungarian composer.

Life

Seiber studied at the Budapest Academy of Music under Zoltán Kodály and was then in the dance orchestra of a ocean liner active, so that he had in New York City the opportunity to hear jazz and enter even at jam sessions. He led from 1928 in Frankfurt am Main at Dr. Hoch's Conservatory of the first jazz class in the world. In the winter semester 1928/29, 19 students were enrolled, with whom he gave a public concert on March 3, 1929 which was broadcast by Radio Frankfurt. Another concert in 1929 was also adopted by other transmitters. Seiber was next employed as a musician at the Schauspielhaus Frankfurt, where he edited the jazz operetta Jim and Jill and conducted.

After the Nazi seizure of power, the jazz class, was among the students Eugen Henkel and Dietrich Schulz- Köhn, closed; Seiber was released as a Jew under the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. In 1935, he was forced to emigrate to Britain, where he worked as a teacher of composition at London's Morley College in 1942. Among his pupils were Peter Racine Fricker, John Mayer, Anthony Milner and Hugh Wood.

Seiber was influenced by jazz and the music of Bela Bartok and Arnold Schoenberg. His extensive compositional output includes music for film and radio, orchestral works, chamber music, piano works, and vocal compositions. Among his most famous works is the cantata Ulysses from 1950, which is inspired by the novel by James Joyce. Together with John Dankworth, he wrote the Third Stream composition Improvisations for Jazz Band and Orchestra.

Seiber used several times the pseudonym GS Mathis, Mathis or George Matthis for his jazz compositions ( his initial MGS vice versa), especially for works for John Dankworth. Seiber is sometimes spelled as Seyber.

Mátyás Seiber died in a car accident in South Africa killed. György Ligeti dedicated his orchestral piece Atmosphères (1961 ) Seiber's memory.