ACNET - Eugene Hartzell

	`Vol 10 No.4/00Eugene Hartzell: 1932-2000` By Otto Biba, president of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. Everyone can list the names of musicians and composers who beginning in the 19th century - at various times and for various reasons - left Austria for the United States and made themselves a career there. The number of musicians born in the USA who made Austria their second home for professional reasons is much smaller. But there are hardly any composers who were born and educated in the USA and ended up settling in Austria. You have to be careful with superlatives: Eugene Hartzell, born May 21, 1932 in Cincinnati, died April 20, 2000 in Vienna, may well not be the most important and successful of them all, but he is certainly one of the very important ones among them. Hartzell studied at Kent State University and at Yale University's School of Music where in 1956 he received the distinguished Ditson Fellowship. He used it in order to travel to Austria, which had just emerged from the Allied occupation. In Vienna, he studied composition with Hans Erich Apostel. Apostel (1901 to 1972) had been a student of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg and was a strict custodian of Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone compositional technique. Apostel only taught privately. He didn't have many students and was very selective about the ones he took on. When Hartzell made his pilgrimage to him, Apostel scrutinized both his musicianship and his personality and finally accepted him. He introduced the young, highly talented American composer to the tradition of the Viennese School (which is what it was still called back then; today it is popularly referred to as the Second Viennese School). Hartzell not only learned about its compositional technique, something that could be studied anywhere, but also got to taste its spirit, the ideas behind the technique. Hartzell became a kind of grandchild student of Arnold Schoenberg in the truest sense of the word. He was not an imitator - the connection was in spirit only. Schoenberg himself had demanded absolute independence of all of his students, and found it, too, in Berg, Webern, and Apostel. Apostel expected the same of Hartzell. Hartzell found this independence within the Schoenberg tradition and within himself as a composer. The Sonatina for Clarinet, composed in 1957, was the first work he considered typical of his style. In the next twenty years he wrote a total of ten such epigrammatically concentrated pieces for solo instruments. Externally they are reminiscent of Webern, but in their density appear much more musically inclined. Before Hartzell could start his career as a composer, however, he had to serve in the military. He was lucky enough to be recognized as a musical exception and from 1958 to 1960 was able to serve on the 7th U.S. Army Symphony Orchestra, which was stationed in Germany. After-wards he settled in Vienna once and for all. He worked as a freelance composer, even though he was not yet able to live from his compositions. So he also took to translating complicated musical texts. From my own experience, I can vouch that any author whose text was translated by Hartzell was especially fortunate, since Hartzell not only translated, but was also the first reader who critically reviewed the text. He also served as coach for selected students of the most famous singing teacher in Vienna at the time, Professor Radamsky. He met his wife in Vienna, a singer from England. Hartzell's apartment in an old Viennese building on a narrow street in the 3rd District beautifully combined Viennese charm and local tradition with an openness to the world that didn't even seem to be a contradiction. It was a meeting place for a very large circle of friends from the Austrian and international intellectual and musical world. And many acquaintances and friendships were forged there, as none other than the great musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon recalls in gratitude and admiration. Hartzell wrote songs and choral works, chamber and orchestral music, often with interesting instrumentation, because he not only considered the construction principal of the thematic work important, but also the tone color. He entrusted nearly all of these compositions to the Doblinger publishing house. Despite all strictness and rigorousness of the Schoenberg school, he also took an interest in including jazz elements for a while, and combined Webernian brevity and conciseness with Bergian lyricism. Such a connection between rigorous strictness and pleasing civility, joie de vivre even, could only be found by someone who had made Vienna his home. The City of Vienna awarded him the highest recognition an artist can earn. Hartzell was extremely honored when he received the news of the award. But death came before he was able to accept it. `[``Home] [Contact] [Credits] [Help`] `\|``ACI in the US \| Events \| Science and Education \| Other Cultural Institutions \| Austria à la Carte \| Café Central \| Austria Kultur Online \| Gallery \| Forum \| Friends of Austrian Culture \| Guestbook \|`

Vol 10 No.4/00Eugene Hartzell: 1932-2000

By Otto Biba, president of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. Everyone can list the names of musicians and composers who beginning in the 19th century - at various times and for various reasons - left Austria for the United States and made themselves a career there. The number of musicians born in the USA who made Austria their second home for professional reasons is much smaller. But there are hardly any composers who were born and educated in the USA and ended up settling in Austria. You have to be careful with superlatives: Eugene Hartzell, born May 21, 1932 in Cincinnati, died April 20, 2000 in Vienna, may well not be the most important and successful of them all, but he is certainly one of the very important ones among them. Hartzell studied at Kent State University and at Yale University's School of Music where in 1956 he received the distinguished Ditson Fellowship. He used it in order to travel to Austria, which had just emerged from the Allied occupation. In Vienna, he studied composition with Hans Erich Apostel. Apostel (1901 to 1972) had been a student of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg and was a strict custodian of Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone compositional technique. Apostel only taught privately. He didn't have many students and was very selective about the ones he took on. When Hartzell made his pilgrimage to him, Apostel scrutinized both his musicianship and his personality and finally accepted him. He introduced the young, highly talented American composer to the tradition of the Viennese School (which is what it was still called back then; today it is popularly referred to as the Second Viennese School). Hartzell not only learned about its compositional technique, something that could be studied anywhere, but also got to taste its spirit, the ideas behind the technique. Hartzell became a kind of grandchild student of Arnold Schoenberg in the truest sense of the word. He was not an imitator - the connection was in spirit only. Schoenberg himself had demanded absolute independence of all of his students, and found it, too, in Berg, Webern, and Apostel. Apostel expected the same of Hartzell. Hartzell found this independence within the Schoenberg tradition and within himself as a composer. The Sonatina for Clarinet, composed in 1957, was the first work he considered typical of his style. In the next twenty years he wrote a total of ten such epigrammatically concentrated pieces for solo instruments. Externally they are reminiscent of Webern, but in their density appear much more musically inclined. Before Hartzell could start his career as a composer, however, he had to serve in the military. He was lucky enough to be recognized as a musical exception and from 1958 to 1960 was able to serve on the 7th U.S. Army Symphony Orchestra, which was stationed in Germany. After-wards he settled in Vienna once and for all. He worked as a freelance composer, even though he was not yet able to live from his compositions. So he also took to translating complicated musical texts. From my own experience, I can vouch that any author whose text was translated by Hartzell was especially fortunate, since Hartzell not only translated, but was also the first reader who critically reviewed the text. He also served as coach for selected students of the most famous singing teacher in Vienna at the time, Professor Radamsky. He met his wife in Vienna, a singer from England. Hartzell's apartment in an old Viennese building on a narrow street in the 3rd District beautifully combined Viennese charm and local tradition with an openness to the world that didn't even seem to be a contradiction. It was a meeting place for a very large circle of friends from the Austrian and international intellectual and musical world. And many acquaintances and friendships were forged there, as none other than the great musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon recalls in gratitude and admiration. Hartzell wrote songs and choral works, chamber and orchestral music, often with interesting instrumentation, because he not only considered the construction principal of the thematic work important, but also the tone color. He entrusted nearly all of these compositions to the Doblinger publishing house. Despite all strictness and rigorousness of the Schoenberg school, he also took an interest in including jazz elements for a while, and combined Webernian brevity and conciseness with Bergian lyricism. Such a connection between rigorous strictness and pleasing civility, joie de vivre even, could only be found by someone who had made Vienna his home. The City of Vienna awarded him the highest recognition an artist can earn. Hartzell was extremely honored when he received the news of the award. But death came before he was able to accept it.

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