Emil Nikolaus Joseph, Freiherr von Reznicek (4 May 1860, in Vienna – 2 August 1945, in Berlin) was an Austrian composer of Romanian-Czech ancestry.

Life

Reznicek's grandfather, Josef Resnitschek (1787–1848), was a trumpet virtuoso and band leader in the Imperial regiments Nos. 32 (Esterhazy), based in Budapest, and 60 (Gustav Wasa), based in Vienna where he played music with Johann Strauss Sr. and Joseph Lanner. Reznicek's father Josef Resnitschek/Reznicek (1812–1887) entered the army as a cadet and eventually became Feldmarschall-Lieutenant, the second-highest rank in the Austrian army, gaining an ordinary diploma of nobility in 1851 and the rank as a Baron (Freiherr) in 1859. His mother, Clarisse Fürstin Ghika Budești (1837–1864), belonged to the influential Ghika family of Romania. Emil Nikolaus was the half-brother of the artist Ferdinand von Řezníček (1868–1909).

Reznicek passed his childhood in Vienna, until the family moved to Graz in 1874. He began piano lessons in 1871; his first compositions date from 1876–78, when he was a student in Graz and at the Staatsgymnasium in Marburg an der Drau (Maribor).Michael Wittmann: Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek: Kindheit und Jugend. He studied law and music in Graz from 1878–80. He never finished his law degree, but continued to study music with Wilhelm Mayer (also known as W. A. Rémy). Finally, he went to Leipzig to study with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn. He gained his diploma as a composer on 9 June 1882, not long after he and his wife Mathilde's (née Thurn-Valsassina) first son Ludwig Emil Franz was born on 26 May 1882.

Subsequently, he honed his conducting skills through apprenticeships at various theaters in Graz, Zürich, Stettin, Jena, Bochum, Berlin, and Mainz. In 1886, he obtained a position at the Neues Deutsches Landestheater in Prague. It was during this period in Prague that his second son, Friedrich Reznicek, was born on 22 February 1887. Friedrich's mother, Adele Schnabel, was Reznicek's paramour and a fellow performer of the opera. Reznicek's first son, Ludwig Emil Franz, died the following year in 1888. And the next year, Reznicek's third son, Eugen Arthur Emmerich, was born to Mathilde on 12 August 1889. Reznicek's career in Prague continued with his appointment as Kapellmeister of the 88th Infantry in 1890, a role he held until his dismissal in 1892 following a duel. Despite this setback, he achieved his greatest success up to that point with the premiere of Donna Diana on 16 December 1894, a triumph that significantly advanced his conducting career. He later contended for the succession of Eduard Lassen at Weimar and subsequently served as Hofkapellmeister at Mannheim from 1896 to 1899. During this time of setback and great achievement, Emil's wife Mathilde became seriously ill, and subsequently died on 6 July 1897. Additionally, Reznicek became involved romantically with a married woman, Bertha Meyer (née Juillerat-Chasseur), wife to Edgar Meyer since 8 March 1892. Bertha had one son during this marriage, Burghard Edgar Martin Artur, born on 29 October 1896. Reznicek's fourth son Emil Ludwig Karl was born on 18 August 1898, conceived while Bertha was still entwined with Edgar; there was such political scandal due to the situation, the family moved from Mannheim.

Reznicek married Bertha Meyer on 18 July 1899, and from 1899 to 1902 the couple settled at Wiesbaden, where Reznicek wrote his fifth opera Till Eulenspiegel, which premiered in 1902 at Karlsruhe under the direction of Felix Mottl. In the autumn of 1902, Reznicek moved to Charlottenburg, then a wealthy suburb of Berlin, where he remained for most of his life. It was here in Charlottenburg that Reznicek and his wife Bertha's daughter, Jutta Felicitas Amalie, was born on 18 January 1904.

In Berlin, Reznicek enjoyed a good start with the premiere of his first symphony and a revival of Till Eulenspiegel at the Court-opera. But he subsequently distanced himself from the circle of Emperor Wilhelm II. In 1905 he composed some songs with obvious left-wing tendencies. For economic reasons, he was forced to accept the position of chief conductor of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra (1906–08) and Warsaw Opera (1907/08), where he introduced Salome by Richard Strauss and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner. From 1909 to 1911, Reznicek assumed the position of chief conductor at Hans Gregor's Komische Oper an der Weidendammbrücke at Berlin (not related to the modern Komische Oper of Berlin). Today, Gregor is considered to be the founder of modern Regietheater; Reznicek's experience there registers in his operas beginning with Ritter Blaubart (1915–1917). Gregor closed his enterprise upon becoming Intendant at the Court Opera in Vienna in 1911. This proved to be a decisive year for Reznicek personally as well. His wife Berta fell seriously ill and was in critical condition for a month; his autobiography of 1940 indicates that he seriously considered suicide at the time. Instead, he channeled his feelings into the confessional tone poem Schlemihl (1912). Schlemihl met with immediate success and launched a new phase in Reznicek's career as a composer, becoming the first installment of a trilogy that also included Der Sieger (1913) and Frieden - Eine Vision (1914). In 1914–15 he wrote In memoriam, a requiem for the fallen soldiers of all nations. In 1915/16 came his next opera, Ritter Blaubart, which, due to wartime censorship, did not premiere at Darmstadt until 1920. With the Weimar Republic came public recognition: Reznicek was nominated for a professorship at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and for a seat in the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts. Reznicek himself responded with a continuous flow of new music until the spring of 1935.

The rise of the Nazi Party in 1933, however, brought new and complex challenges. While Reznicek himself was not interested in politics, his wife Bertha's Jewish roots (though raised Calvinist) became a dangerous liability under the new regime. This was not Reznicek’s first encounter with the complexities of Jewish identity within his own family. His adopted son, Burghard Edgar Martin Artur (born Meyer), was persecuted for his extended family's Jewish roots, escaping for a time to New York City. Also, Reznicek's son Eugen, a military officer, was asked to leave Germany in 1941 for non-alignment with the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), or Nazi Party. As soon as was convenient, Eugen and his wife, and two daughters returned to Vienna. Reznicek's son, Friedrich, who served as a lieutenant in the Imperial and Royal Army, had since immigrated to Canada in 1907 and onto the United States in 1909. As was popular at the time, he formally changed his surname and adopted von Marbod. Friedrich raised a family of twelve children with his wife, Käthe Riese from Dresden. Ironically, several of Fritz' sons would come to serve in high-ranking roles of the US military, directly opposing the regime that threatened their relatives in Germany and Austria. One son, Arnold von Marbod (1924-2015) became a fighter pilot serving in WWII, and an intelligence officer. Another son, Robert von Marbod (1925-2020), became a US diplomat who would later be stationed in Germany, a poignant twist of fate. And another son, Erich von Marbod (born 1929), rose to the position of US Assistant Secretary of Defense. Meanwhile, Reznicek's daughter Felicitas (1904–1997) attempted to leave Germany for Switzerland, but was denied a work permit. She remained in Berlin and joined the resistance movement in 1934, later working with British intelligence. Back in Germany, the threat to Bertha was immediate; the family faced blackmail, and Bertha, driven to despair, nearly committed suicide. She withdrew from public life and died of a heart attack in 1939. Amidst these personal and political upheavals, in 1934 Reznicek accepted Strauss's invitation to become the German delegate at the Ständige Rat für die Internationale Zusammenarbeit der Komponisten. Contrary to the opinion promulgated by Ernst Krenek, this was not a Nazi organization but an invention of Richard Strauss tolerated by the Nazi propaganda. With some restrictions, the Rat operated rather independently (at least up to 1941), organizing festivals and concerts with modern music in all its member states. Reznicek organized these concerts in Germany and in due course he was able to present compositions which were not particularly in-line with the Nazi-ideology (e.g., the music of Jewish composers such as Dukas and Wladigeroff or jazz-inspired works like The Rio Grande by Constant Lambert). When the Nazi party tightened the grip on the Rat in 1942, Reznicek tried to resist and eventually resigned. Already in 1940 he had raised some suspicion at the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda with his autobiography, which was destined for publication but prohibited by censorship. During his final years, the performance of his works in Germany diminished considerably. In 1943, he was evacuated from Berlin to Baden, Lower Austria. There he suffered a stroke on Christmas Day 1943, from which he never fully recovered. Becoming increasingly demented, he was allowed to return to Berlin in February 1945. He died from typhoid fever and starvation on 2 August 1945 during the epidemic ravaging most of Berlin. He was buried in the first coffin sold in Berlin after the war, and the pall bearers removed their suits, socks, and shoes for security reasons suggested by the Soviet major at the border of east and west Berlin. Reznicek was a friend of Richard Strauss, but relations between the two were ambivalent. Reznicek's symphonic poem Schlemihl (1912) has been seen as a parody of Strauss' A Hero's Life, though in his autobiography Reznicek rejected this interpretation. By his own account, his greatest influence was, in fact, Gustav Mahler. Sardonic humor features in much of Reznicek's music, from the prankster Till Eulenspiegel and the jibbering Blaubart of Ritter Blaubart to the Dance around the Golden Calf in Der Sieger and the expressionist Tarantella movement of the Dance Symphony (No. 5, 1925).

Reputation

Today, Reznicek is mainly remembered for the overture to his opera Donna Diana, composed in 1894. The overture is a popular stand-alone piece at symphonic concerts, and it served as the theme for the American radio (1947–1955) series Challenge of the Yukon, which later migrated to the TV series (1955–1958) Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. It was also used in the 1950s on the BBC's Children's Hour by Stephen King-Hall for his talks on current affairs.