David Josef Bach (13 August 1874 – 30 January 1947) was an Austrian journalist, music critic, and an influential figure in the cultural life of early twentieth-century

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Early life and friend of Arnold Schoenberg

Bach was born in 1874 in

Lvov Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...

(then Lemberg, capital of

Austrian Galicia The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria,, ; pl, Królestwo Galicji i Lodomerii, ; uk, Королівство Галичини та Володимирії, Korolivstvo Halychyny ta Volodymyrii; la, Rēgnum Galiciae et Lodomeriae also known as ...

) to Jewish parents. As a boy, Bach was a close friend of the young

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

, who later named him as one of the three friends (the other two were

Oskar Adler Oskar Adler (4 June 187515 May 1955) was an Austrian violinist, physician and esoteric savant. He was the brother of the political theorist Max Adler and a key early influence on his contemporary Arnold Schoenberg. His friend and student Hans Ke ...

and

Alexander von Zemlinsky Alexander Zemlinsky or Alexander von Zemlinsky (14 October 1871 – 15 March 1942) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher. Biography Early life Zemlinsky was born in Vienna to a highly diverse family. Zemlinsky's grandfather, Anton S ...

) who greatly influenced him in his youthful explorations of music and literature. Describing him as "A

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, a philosopher, a connoisseur of literature, and a mathematician" as well as "a good musician", Schoenberg paid tribute to his friend by claiming that it was D.J. Bach who furnished his character with "the ethical and moral power needed to withstand vulgarity and commonplace popularity" ('My Evolution', 1949).

Early studies and career

After studying Natural Sciences at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

, where he was influenced by

Ernst Mach Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach ...

, D.J. Bach became a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, being appointed as

music critic ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...

of the '' Arbeiter-Zeitung'' ('Worker's Newspaper') in 1904 after the death of Josef Scheu (1841–1904). As a loyal supporter of Schoenberg and of the slightly older

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...

he supported contemporary music in a city where performances of 'modern' works would sometimes be disrupted by noisy protests.

Socialist

An active

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

dedicated to making the arts accessible to the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

es, it was D.J. Bach who instituted the ''Arbeiter-Symphonie-Konzerte'' ('Workers' Symphony Concerts') in Vienna in 1905. His wide-ranging activities earned him the hostility of

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...

groups, who denounced his artistic programme as part of a '

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

conspiracy' to undermine traditional

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n culture. Such accusations were all the more vehement because D.J. Bach was also one of the earliest members of the Vienna

Psychoanalytical PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might be ...

Association which met under the aegis of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

and whose members were mostly Jewish.

Editor-in-chief of the Arbeiter-Zeitung

D.J. Bach was made

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the literature and art section of the ''Arbeiter-Zeitung'' in 1917. Once the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

came to power in 1919, however, he became highly influential politically. Immediately appointed Director of the ''Sozialdemokratische Kunststelle'' ('Social-Democratic Arts Council'), he was able to develop a dynamic programme of cultural events as an integral part of the programme of socialist reconstruction in so-called '

Red Vienna Red Vienna (German: ''Rotes Wien'') was the colloquial name for the capital of Austria between 1918 and 1934, when the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (SDAP) maintained almost unilateral political control over Vienna and, for a short ...

'. He organized readings for the workers of Vienna by the satirist Karl Kraus; in 1933, commissioned a painting by Oskar Kokoschka of the ''Wilhelminenberg Kinderheim'', with its panoramic view of the City of Vienna; and invited the

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

stage designer

Frederick Kiesler Frederick John Kiesler (September 22, 1890 – December 27, 1965) was an Austrian- American architect, theoretician, theater designer, artist and sculptor. Biography Kiesler was born Friedrich Jacob Kiesler in Czernowitz, Austro-Hungarian Empi ...

to construct a full-sized experimental stage – the 'Raumbühne' – in the Konzerthaus. The organization of the Theatre and Music Festival of the City of Vienna in 1924 was one of the high points of his career. But he also – year in, year out – made major musical and theatrical productions available to working-class audiences through a system of subsidized block bookings. In order to help the Workers to be better prepared for the Concerts, Operas or Plays they were planning to attend, from 1926 to 1931, the 'Kunststelle' issued a monthly Arts' magazine, 'Kunst und Volk', in which distinguished contributors from all around Europe discussed not only the artistic events in question, but also a broad range of historical, political and social matters.

Music

Music was, and remained, his central focus, and it was he who founded the amateur ''Vienna Singverein'' ('Vienna Choral Society') in 1919. This organisation, together with the ''Arbeiter-Symphonie-Konzerte'' and the 'Workers' Music Conservatoire', flourished until all were disbanded upon the new fascist government's outlawing of the Social Democratic Party and imposition of an authoritarian constitution in 1934. Anton Webern was active as a conductor of all musical organisations, and developed a close and enduring friendship with D.J. Bach: it was Bach who delivered the address which opened the concert of Webern's music given on 3 December 1933 to celebrate the composer's fiftieth birthday, and Bach who persuaded Webern not to resign from his position as president of the Vienna

International Society for Contemporary Music The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music. The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following the ...

(ISCM) chapter when his projected performance of

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 ...

's opera ''

Wozzeck ''Wozzeck'' () is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama ''Woyzeck'', which the German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at h ...

'' in Florence in 1934 was cancelled for political reasons.

Cultural politics

D.J. Bach can be said to have held a unique position in the cultural politics of Vienna. In a situation of increasing polarization between 'Right' and 'Left', he attempted to create a cultural consensus by including conservatives like

Hofmannsthal Hofmannsthal may refer to: * Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal (1759–1849), Austrian merchant * Augustin Emil Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (1815–1881), industrialist * Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), Austrian prodigy, writer, and libr ...

and Kralik in his system of patronage, as well as radicals like Ernst Fischer and

. The esteem in which he was held by the Viennese cultural community is reflected in the collection of eighty-eight large-format literary, artistic and musical dedications in a "''Kassette''" presented to him in August 1924 on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. This collection, now in the care of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, includes original artistic works of considerable value and forms a unique 'time capsule' of Viennese cultural life.

Move to London and death

In 1939 David Bach, his wife Gisela and nephew Herbert, emigrated to London. In England he became a leading member of the Austrian Labour Club and President of the Union of Austrian Journalists. He continued to organize musical events, particularly concerts of chamber music, supported by members of the future

Amadeus Quartet The Amadeus Quartet was a string quartet founded in 1947 and disbanded in 1987, having retained its founding members throughout its history. Noted for its smooth, sophisticated style, its seamless ensemble playing, and its sensitive interpretat ...

. Bach died in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1947.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bach, David Josef 1874 births 1947 deaths People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Jews from Austria-Hungary Journalists from Vienna Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United Kingdom