In Search of Hans Gál (1890-1987): Musical Style and Continuity in an Era of Radical Change

Abstract

Born in Vienna in 1890, Hans Gál enjoyed early successes as a composer, conductor, scholar, and teacher. In 1933, he was abruptly removed from his position as Director of the Mainz Conservatory due to his Jewish ethnicity when the Nazi part took over. And in 1938, just days after the Anschluss, he and his family fled Austria. With the help of the musicologist Donald Francis Tovey, they arrived in Edinburgh. In 1945, Gál was offered a position on the faculty of the University of Edinburgh, and they remained in the city for the rest of their lives.

Though Gál was active and successful in Vienna and Germany during the early twentieth century, he never took part in the many stylistic trends that defined the era. Despite the many disruptions and radical changes in twentieth-century music, Gál maintained an interesting continuity.

In an era of increasing specialization, Gál stayed active as a composer, scholar, editor, teacher, conductor, and performer throughout his long career. Gál’s life is of interest to scholars studying a broad range of topics, such as Jewish studies, twentieth-century opera, Viennese cultural history, and post-war Great Britain. In this thesis, I aim to illuminate Gál’s voice as a composer and scholar. However, as he seems to defy definition, this is necessarily a preliminary study.