Max Deutsch (17 November 1892 – 22 November 1982) was an Austrian-French composer, conductor, and academic teacher. He studied with

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

and was his assistant. Teaching at the Sorbonne and the

École Normale de Musique de Paris The École Normale de Musique de Paris "Alfred Cortot" (ENMP) is a leading conservatoire located in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. The school was founded in 1919 by Auguste Mangeot and Alfred Cortot. The term ''école normale'' (English: no ...

, he influenced notable students such as Philippe Capdenat, Donald Harris,

György Kurtág György Kurtág (; born 19 February 1926) is a Hungarian composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. According to ''Grove Music Online'', with a style that draws on " Bartók, Webern and, to a lesser extent, Stravinsky, his work is c ...

and

Philippe Manoury Philippe Manoury (born 19 June 1952) is a French composer. Biography Manoury was born in Tulle and began composition studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris with Gérard Condé and Max Deutsch. He continued his studies from 1974 to 1 ...

Career

Born in Vienna, Deutsch was a pupil of and assistant to

. He studied under him in Vienna before the First World War; and followed Schoenberg as his assistant to Amsterdam in 1921. Deutsch was a Fellow and taught at UNESCO, and taught at the Sorbonne ( Paris IV) from 1970 to 1971, and finally, from 1972 to the

. He founded in Paris the

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communi ...

' (''The Jewish Mirror''), where many works of composers such as Schönberg,

Anton Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...

and

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

were first performed. Konstantin Stanislavsky commissioned a work which was to become the opera ' (Chess). His "film symphony" ' (The Treasure) came from a commission from German film director

Georg Wilhelm Pabst Georg Wilhelm Pabst (25 August 1885 – 29 May 1967) was an Austrian film director and screenwriter. He started as an actor and theater director, before becoming one of the most influential German-language filmmakers during the Weimar Republic. ...

to provide an original musical score for his 1923 film. In structure, ' was crafted in two formats: a

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

and a stand-alone symphonic work. The five act symphony survived because the manuscript in the latter form was donated to the

Deutsches Filminstitut The Deutsches Filminstitut – DIF ("German Film Institute") is an institute for the study of film, based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. History The Deutsches Filminstitut was founded on 13 April 1949 as the Deutsches Institut für Filmkunde (DIF ...

in 1982, shortly before Deutsch died. A score of years later, DeutschlandRadio Berlin collaborated with the

Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz The Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz (German State Philharmonic of Rhineland-Palatinate) is a German orchestra based in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. The orchestra performs concerts principally a ...

, conducted by

Frank Strobel Frank Strobel (born in 1966 in Munich) is a German conductor known for premieres and performances of works by composers Sergei Prokofiev, Franz Schreker and Siegfried Wagner. He is authorized arranger and editor of works by the composer Alfred Sc ...

, to produce a record of "this extremely rare and totally unknown symphonic work". The recording became the foundation of a "synchronized restoration" of the film. As film music the "piece is scored for a theater orchestra of the kind typically found in European cinemas of the day". It brings to mind the work of

Kurt Weill Kurt Julian Weill (; ; March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for hi ...

and Stefan Wolpe, and foreshadows

Max Steiner Maximilian Raoul Steiner (10 May 1888 – 28 December 1971) was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and became one of cinema of the United States, Hollywood's greatest musical composers. Steiner was a child prodi ...

's modernist film scores, adopting

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

twelve tone

leitmotif A leitmotif or () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is a partial angliciz ...

s. Mood setting and character are developed; pianos appear throughout. From 1940 to 1945, Deutsch served in the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (, also known simply as , "the Legion") is a corps of the French Army created to allow List of militaries that recruit foreigners, foreign nationals into French service. The Legion was founded in 1831 and today consis ...

. He formed long lasting friendships with

Georges Bernanos Louis Émile Clément Georges Bernanos (; 20 February 1888 – 5 July 1948) was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. A Catholic with monarchist leanings, he was critical of elitist thought and was opposed to what he identified as d ...

and

Jean Cassou Jean Cassou (; 9 July 1897 – 15 January 1986) was a French writer, art critic, poet, member of the French Resistance during World War II and the first Director of the Musée national d'Art moderne in Paris. Biography Jean Cassou was born at ...

. He was close to

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, c ...

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...

and Vladimir Jankelevitch. Max Deutsch was a friend of

Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...

. He died in Paris. After the Second World War, he devoted himself mainly to teaching music, chiefly following the principles of Schönberg. In Paris, among his hundreds of students, there were composers: Jorge Arriagada, Girolamo Arrigo, Colette Bailly, Sylvano Bussotti, Philippe Capdenat, Gérard Condé, Rudi Martinus van Dijk, Ahmed Essyad, Jacqueline Fontyn, Sylvia Hallett, Donald Harris, Félix Ibarrondo
Oswaldo González

, Patrick Marcland,

Luis de Pablo Luis de Pablo Costales (28 January 1930 – 10 October 2021) was a Spanish composer belonging to the generation that Cristóbal Halffter named ''the Generación del 51''. Mostly self-taught as a composer and influenced by Maurice Ohana and Max ...

, Yves-Marie Pasquet,

Kyriakos Sfetsas Kyriakos Sfetsas (; born September 29, 1945) is a Greek composer. His body of work consists of a large number of compositions: symphonic, choral, ballet and theatre music, chamber, electronic, film scores, pieces for solo instruments, pieces in ...

, Raymond Vaillant; American composers David Chaitkin, Edmund Cionek, Eugene Kurtz,

Allen Shearer Allen Raymond Shearer (born October 5, 1943, in Seattle, Washington) is an American composer and baritone. Life Shearer’s early musical experiences were as a singer; the majority of his works are for the voice or voices, with a later emphasis ...

, and Dean C. Taylor; British composer Nicholas Maw; Canadian-born Srul Irving Glick; the conductor Alexandre Myrat; and music critic Heinz-Klaus Metzger.

Family

A love of music and

music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ...

ran in the family. His brother was Frederick Dorian (1902–1991); they both studied under Schoenberg in Vienna. Frederick became a music professor at

Carnegie-Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a Private university, private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became t ...

Legacy

Before he died, Deutsch attempted to destroy all of his compositions, so that his only surviving legacy would be his students. However, some of his work survived. In late 2013, a recording of Deutsch conducting the Suisse Romande Orchestra in a performance of three "master works" by

was released. It includes short lectures by Deutsch on each of the pieces.

Works

* ', opera (1923) * ', revue (Moulin Rouge) and film music for Georg Wilhelm Pabsts (1923) * ' (1925) * ', opera (1972) * ''The Flight'', incidental music for the play ''Tristan Tzara'' * ''Prayer for us carnal'', choral symphony with a text by Charles Peguy * ''Choirs of men from Vinci''

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

External links

*
Max Deutsch photograph
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deutsch, Max Austrian conductors (music) Austrian male conductors (music) French male conductors (music) Austrian male composers French male composers 1892 births 1982 deaths 20th-century Austrian people 20th-century Austrian Jews Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion Composers from Vienna Academic staff of the École Normale de Musique de Paris 20th-century Austrian musicians 20th-century Austrian male musicians 20th-century French composers 20th-century French conductors (music) 20th-century French male musicians Austrian emigrants to France Pupils of Arnold Schoenberg Pupils of Anton Webern Pupils of Eduard Steuermann