Deutsch, Otto Erich
Deutsch, Otto Erich
Deutsch, Otto Erich, eminent Austrian musicologist; b. Vienna, Sept. 5,1883; d. there, Nov. 23,1967. He studied literature and art history at the univs. of Vienna and Graz; was art critic of Vienna’s Die Zeit (1908–09); then served as an assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Institut of the Univ. of Vienna (1909–12); later was a bookseller, and then music librarian of the important collection of Anthony van Hoboken in Vienna (1926–35). In 1939 he emigrated to England and settled in Cambridge; in 1947 he became a naturalized British subject, but returned to Vienna in 1951. A scholar of impeccable credentials, Deutsch was an acknowledged authority on Handel, Mozart, and Schubert; his documentary biographies of these composers constitute primary sources; he was also responsible for initiating the critical edition of Mozart’s letters, which he ed. with W. Bauer and J. Eibl as Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (7 vols., Kassel, 1962–75).
Writings
Schubert-Brevier (Berlin, 1905); Beethovens Beziehungen zu Graz (Graz, 1907); Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens und Schaffens (in collaboration, first with L. Scheibler, then with W. Kahl and G. Kinsky), which was planned as a comprehensive work in 3 vols. containing all known documents, pictures, and other materials pertaining to Schubert, arranged in chronological order, with a thematic catalog, but of which only 2 vols. were publ.: vol. Ill, Sein Leben in Bildern (Munich, 1913), and vol. II, part 1, Die Dokumente seines Lebens (Munich, 1914; Eng. tr. 1946, by E. Blom, as Schubert: A Documentary Biography; American ed., 1947, as The Schubert Reader: A Life of Franz Schubert in Letters and Documents; 2nd German ed., 1964, enl., in the Neue Ausgabe samtlicher Werke of Schubert); Franz Schuberts Briefe und Schriften (Munich, 1919; Eng. tr., 1928; 4th German ed., Vienna, 1954); Die historischen Bildnisse Franz Schuberts in getreuen Nachbildungen (Vienna, 1922); Die Originalausgaben von Schuberts Goethe- Liedern (Vienna, 1926); Franz Schubert: Tagebuch: Faksimile der Originalhandschrift (Vienna, 1928); Mozart und die Wiener Logen (Vienna, 1932); with B. Paumgartner, Leopold Mozarts Briefe an seine Tochter (Salzburg, 1936); Das Freihaustheater auf der Wieden 1787–1801 (Vienna, 1937); Wolfgang Amade Mozart: Verzeichnis oiler meiner Werke. Faksimile der Handschrift mit dem Beiheft “Mozarts Werkverzeichnis 1784–1791” (Vienna, 1938; Eng. tr., 1956); Schubert: Thematic Catalogue of All His Works in Chronological Order (with D. Wakeling; London, 1951; Ger tr. as Franz Schubert: Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke, in the Neue Ausgabe samtlicher Werke of Schubert in a rev. ed., 1978); Handel: A Documentary Biography (N.Y., 1954; London, 1955); Franz Schubert: Die Erinnerungen seiner Freunde (Leipzig, 1957; Eng. tr.,
1958); Mozart: Die Dokumente seines Lebens (Kassel, 1961; Eng. tr., 1965, as Mozart: A Documentary Biography, 2nd edv 1966; suppl., 1978); Mozart und seine Welt in zeitgenossischen Bildern (completed by M. Zenger, Kassel, 1961).
Bibliography
O. E. D. zum 75. Geburtstag (Vienna, 1958); W. Gerstenberg, J. LaRue, and W. Rehm, eds., Festschrift O. E. D. (Kassel, 1963).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire