You are bidding on one typed, signed letter of Swiss musicologist Hans Oesch (1926-1992).

Dated Basle, 27. April 1959.

On stationery from the "National-Zeitung", feuilleton editors.

addressed to the pianist, composer, writer and music critic Erwin Kroll (1886-1976) in Berlin.

About the "political past" of Austrian composers and conductors Alois Melichar (1896-1976).

Signed"[Your most devoted] Oesch."

Format: A4; without envelope.

Condition: Letter punched at the side (without loss of text). Paper browned and creased, with small corner creases and recipient's underlining.BPlease also note the pictures!

Internal note: Kroll 2021-12-11 autograph autograph

Hans Rolf Oesch (* 10. September 1926 in Wolfhalden; † 7 May 1992 in Anwil) was a Swiss musicologist.

Life:From 1946 to 1951 Oesch studied musicology with Jacques Handschin at the University of Basel, where he graduated with a doctorate. In 1959 he habilitated at the University of Zurich and then worked as a music reviewer for the National-Zeitung and as a lecturer in Basel.

In 1967, when he was appointed full professor, he also became head of the Musicology Institute and thus successor to Leo Schrade. He expanded the institute's collection of instruments with Southeast Asian instruments that Oesch had brought with him on his ethnomusicological research trips. He was also involved in the complete edition of Arcangelo Corelli's works and from 1986 worked as scientific director of the Paul Sacher Foundation.

In 1991 Oesch retired and was replaced by Wulf Arlt; he died a few months later.

Alois Melichar (* 18. April 1896 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary; † 9 April 1976 in Munich) was an Austrian composer and conductor.

Life: The son of a conductor began his musical career at the age of 12 as a violinist in his father's chapel. He attended a country teachers' seminar and studied counterpoint from 1916 to 1920 at the Music Academy in Vienna.

In 1920 he followed his teacher Franz Schreker to Berlin, where he studied composition at the music academy until 1923. From 1923 he worked as an orchestra conductor, music teacher and choir director in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkestan and Georgia.

In 1926 he returned to Berlin and was music editor of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung until 1927. From 1927 to 1933 he was principal conductor and musical director of the Deutsche Grammophon-Gesellschaft and until 1934 permanent conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. In this double function he made numerous recordings of symphonic works, at the same time he worked as a music critic.

From 1933 he worked as a freelance composer through the mediation of Erich Kleiber, primarily for film. His first film music for Waltz War about the rivalry between Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss contributed to the success of the film, so that Melichar received numerous other commissions. Among other things, in 1938 he composed music four times for melodramas with the Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli. During the war he contributed to some propaganda films. In 1944 Melichar was included in the list of God-gifted people of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

After 1945, Melichar tried to disguise his active role in National Socialism and portray himself as a victim. He falsely claimed to have been banned from conducting from 1936. From 1945 to 1949 he was conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony Orchestra. From 1946 to 1949 he was music director of the serious music department of the Viennese radio station Rot-Weiss-Rot. Then he settled in Munich and worked again as a film composer, including for The Double Lottchen by Erich Kästner.

Stylistically, Melichar was first influenced by Max Reger and Joseph Marx, after which he composed piano works, chamber music, orchestral works, songs, choirs and an opera in the spirit of neoclassicism. Among other things, he published Schönberg and the consequences in 1960, in which he critically examined the music of Arnold Schönberg. In October 1954 Otto Dix wrote to a friend about Melichar's book Overcoming Modernism: “You absolutely have to read this. I particularly like the wit with which the man slaughters the abstracts through their own utterances. You will laugh your ass off […] The book should be distributed to all drawing teachers and students so that you can finally learn to laugh at this damned nonsense.” Causes.

Melichar's son is the actor Rudolf Melichar.

filmography

1933: Waltz War

1934: The young Baron Neuhaus

1934: Farewell Waltz

1935: The Gypsy Baron

1935: Stradivari

1935: Liselotte von der Pfalz

1935: The Gypsy Baron

1935: If it weren't for the music

1935: Don't Forget Me

1936: Love Awakening

1936: The beggar student

1936: The girl Irene

1936: Three girls around Schubert

1937: The Bat

1937: Land of Love

1938: Capriccio

1938: Always Only You (Solo per te)

1938: Mother's Song

1938: You own my heart

1938: Nanon

1939: The Immortal Heart

1939: Puppet

1939: Maria Ilona

1939: Immortal Waltz

1938, 1940: Michelangelo - The Life of a Titan

1940: Miss von Barnhelm

1940: Falstaff in Vienna

1941: The Girl from Fanoe

1941: My Life for Ireland

1941: Comrades

1941: … rides for Germany

1942: Attack on Baku

1942: Eternal Rembrandt

1943: Secret Tibet

1944: The Magic Violin

1944: Philharmonic

1944: Music in Salzburg

1945: Friends / Marriage in Danger

1946: The Bat

1947: The Immortal Face

1947: Triumph of Love

1948: Annie

1948: Ulli and Marie

1948: The Trial

1948: The Heavenly Waltz

1949: Eroica

1949: White Gold

1949: The Blue Straw Hat

1949: The Strange Story of Brandner Kaspar

1949: Mysterious Depths

1950: The Titan: Story of Michelangelo

1950: You have to be lucky

1950: The double Lottchen

1950: Kissing is not a sin

1951: K - The House of Silence

1951: Maria Theresa

1951: The Secret of a Marriage

1952: 1 April 2000

1953: Don't Forget Love

1953: The Dreaming Mouth

1953: Diary of a Lover

1954: Under our own steam

1954: Eternal Waltz

1954: … and love stays forever

1955: Son without a home

1955: Dunya

1956: Carter Henschel

Erwin Kroll (* 3. February 1886 in Deutsch Eylau, East Prussia; † 7 March 1976 in West Berlin) was a German pianist, composer, writer and music critic. Like his friend Otto Besch, Kroll was a tone poet from East Prussia.

Life:Around 1900 Kroll came to Königsberg i. Pr. and attended the royal hoof high school with Otto Besch. At the Albertus University he studied philology and music. With a doctoral thesis on ETA Hoffmann, who has always been revered in Königsberg, for a Dr. phil. after his doctorate, he went into teaching. In 1919 he devoted himself entirely to music and continued his studies in Munich, which he had begun with Otto Fiebach and Paul Scheinpflug. There he found an important teacher, especially in Hans Pfitzner. He later dedicated a highly acclaimed book to him. In addition to his studies, Kroll was a répétiteur at the Munich State Opera and secretary of the Hans-Pfitzner-Verein für Deutsche Tonkunst, which Thomas Mann had called for to found. In 1925 Kroll returned to East Prussia and became a music critic for the Hartungsche Zeitung, and from 1930 its features editor.From 1934 he worked in Berlin as a critic and writer on music. After the Second World War he headed the music department of the Northwest German Broadcasting Corporation in Berlin until 1953. With his book, Kroll has set a monument to the (forgotten) importance of Königsberg as a music city.

factories

East Prussian homeland - orchestral work

Violin Sonata in B flat major

Sonatina in F major

East Prussian Dances

Der Adebar - Fantasy on East Prussian folk tunes for large orchestra

Vocal works and song arrangements

Songs for solo voices and choral songs

writings

Music city Koenigsberg

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman. Breitkopf & Haertel, Leipzig 1923.

Hans Pfitzner. Three masks publishing house, Munich 1924.

The theater. Festschrift for the 25th anniversary of the municipal theater in Dortmund. The Theater, Berlin 1930.

Carl Maria Weber. Athenaion, Potsdam 1934.

Music city Koenigsberg. Atlantis, Freiburg i. brother 1966.

honors

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Cross of Merit on Ribbon (27. January 1956)

Culture Prize of the East Prussian Association (1960)