Fine TLS Recommending His Émigré Student

$1440 net

Item: 22594

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SCHOENBERG, ARNOLD. (1874-1951). Austrian composer and creator of the revolutionary twelve-tone school of composition, which abandoned fixed tonality. TLS. (“Arnold Schoenb[paraph]”). 2/3p. 4to. Los Angeles, N.d. Addressed: “To Whom It May Concern.”

“This serves to introduce one of my best and talented former pupils, Mr. Julius Toldi. Mr. Toldi graduated from the renowned Viennese Music Academy in violin (Arnold Rose) and composition (Franz Schreker), continued afterwards his studies with me. I can state that his talent and originality interested me very much and that he became an extremely skillful musical technician. After this, I reccomendet [sic] him to the Wiener Volkskonservatorium as teacher of harmony and counterpoint. Later he was a music critic of the Viennese newspaper Wiener Extrablatt. As a composer of an opera and of many works for orchestra he was performed in many European cities with great success. He came to this country in 1937, was director and conductor of the “Canton Civic Opera Inc.” and of the “Akron Opera Guild Inc.” and lectured at the Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Toldi is not only a very well trained and independent mind but he possesses also a great knowledge of modern music. Accordingly I can recommend him highly for lectures in any field he might offer. I wish this my reccommandation [sic] might be successful…”

Fine TLS Recommending His Émigré Student

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Arnold Schoenberg

In 1936, two years after immigrating to the United States, Schoenberg joined the faculty of UCLA and moved to Brentwood Park. That same year, he completed both the Violin Concerto (Op. 36) and the String Quartet No. 4 (Op. 37). Our letter of recommendation is for one of his former students, Austrian violinist and composer Julius Toldi (1891-1965), who, like Schoenberg, immigrated to California where he played with the 20^th Century Fox orchestra and promoted contemporary music – including Schoenberg’s – on the radio. The Wiener Volkskonservatorium was established in 1923 and modeled after the Paris Conservatory. Among its teachers during its brief existence was Austrian composer and conductor Franz Schreker (1878-1934).

Toldi’s popularity during the Weimar Republic was cut short by the rise of anti-Semitism, and the poor reception accorded his later works led his decline into oblivion. Another teacher at the Wiener Volkskonservatorium was Romanian-Austrian violinist and teacher Arnold Josef Rosé (1863-1946), Gustav Mahler’s brother-in-law, whose life and career were also destroyed by anti-Semitism.

Folded with some wear and discoloration at the edges; scotch tape residue affects several typewritten words, otherwise in very good condition.

Fine TLS Recommending His Émigré Student