Philip Herschkowitz (1906 – 1989)

The Rumanian composer Philip Herschkowitz was born in the Rumanian university town of Jassy. He studied composition at the conservatory in Jassy and from 1927 first at the Vienna Academy of Music, then with Alban Berg from 1929 and with Anton Webern from 1935. From 1932 to 1938 he was an employee at Universal Edition and participated in conducting classes with Hermann Scherchen. As a Jew he had to leave Austria after the annexation (Anschluss) in 1938 and lived in Bucharest until 1940, from where he had to escape from the Antonescu-Regime to the Bukovina. For almost half a year he was teaching harmony at the music school in Cernowitz. With the German invasion of Russia in 1941 he escaped to the east, and finally toTashkent. In 1942 he was admitted to the Soviet Composer Association and he worked as a scientific member of staff in the Department of Art in Tashkent. From 1946 he lived in Moscow and worked as a freelance artist for the publisher of Musfond, then for the publisher “Sowetskij kompositor”, as an editor of the cinematographic symphony orchestra and as a private composition teacher and only representative of the Viennese School. Countless composers visited his private tuition, among them Alfred Schnittke and Edisson Denissow. In 1968-69 he lectured at the conservatories of Jerewan and Kiew.

In 1949 he was banned from the Soviet Composer Association, and in 1979 from the foundation of Musfond.

In 1979 he applied for the emigration to Israel. Yet his biggest wish was to conclude his life in Vienna. This wish finally came true, after various futile attempts of application: In 1987 at last Herschkowitz could, as a result of an invitation of the Alban Berg Foundation, together with his wife Elena Herschkowitz, leave for Vienna, where he died in 1989.

The compositional oeuvre of Philip Herschkowitz is still mostly unknown. He enhanced the musical language of the classical modernity and accomplished his music of uppermost intensity and independence completely apart of the western avant-garde. The centre of his oeuvre (until now not made completely accessible) are vocal compositions.