Ernst Toch - Works

Composer, born in Vienna, Austria. He had a prominent career in Germany before fleeing the Nazis and going to the USA in 1935. He wrote some film scores and taught privately, meanwhile composing a substantial body of music in a post-Romantic style with touches of Modernism.

Ernst Toch (pronounced [tɵʜ]) (7 December 1887 - 1 October 1964) was a composer of classical music and film scores. His first compositions date from circa 1900 and were pastiche pieces in the style of Mozart (quartets, 1905 album verses for piano). His first quartet was performed in Leipzig in 1908, and his sixth (Opus 12, 1905) in the year 1909. In 1909, his chamber symphony in F major (written 1906) won the Frankfurt/Main Mozart prize. In 1913 he was appointed lecturer of both piano and composition at the College of Music in Mannheim. He wrote music for films, symphonies, chamber music, chamber operas. He also wrote books dealing with musical theory: Melodielehre (1923) and "The Shaping Forces in Music" (1948).

Toch was considered one of the great avant-garde composers in the pre-Nazi era, and, like many other artists and musicians, went into exile when Hitler came to power.

Toch won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1956 for his Third Symphony (premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on December 2, 1955.

Works

Opera

1927 Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse Libretto by Benno Elkan 1928 Egon und Emilie 1930 Der Fächer 1962 The Last Tale

Orchestral work

1906 Kammersymphonie 1926 Klavierkonzert opus 26 1928 Das Kirschblütenfest 1933 Symphony for Piano and Orchestra (piano concerto no. 2), opus 61 1935 Big Ben (Orchestervariationen) 1950-1964 7 Symphonien including symphony 5 Jephta

Works for Wind band

1926 Spiel opus 39 (Donaueschingen première) 1932 Miniatur Ouvertüre Sinfonietta opus 97

Film music

1934 Catherine the Great 1934 The Private Life of Don Juan 1935 Peter Ibbetson 1938 The Rebel Son 1939 The Cat and the Canary 1940 Dr. Cyclops 1941 Ladies in Retirement 1944 Address Unknown 1945 The Unseen

Choral works

1930 Gesprochene Musik

Chamber music

1902-1954 13 string quartets 1928 Violin sonata opus 44 1929 Cello sonata opus 50

Lieder

1945/1953 Zyklus The Inner Circle

Piano works

1923 Burlesques opus 31 1925 Capriccetti opus 36 1928 Piano sonata opus 47 1929 Echoes from a small town : fourteen moderately easy piano pieces opus 49 1931 Ten concert etudes opus 55