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Egon Wellesz

Austrian-British composer (1885–1974)

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Early life and education in Vienna

Egon Joseph Wellesz was born on 21 October 1885 in the Schottengasse district of Vienna to Samu Wellesz and Ilona Wellesz (née Lövényi). Although his parents met and married in Vienna, they both originated from Hungary and were Jewish. Egon Wellesz formally left the Jewish community on October 4, 1917 and converted to Protestantism in 10 days, on October 14, 1917 (his wife Emmy did so a year earlier), and in 1933 both he and his wife converted to Catholicism. As a boy he attended the Franz-Joseph-Gymnasium on Hegel Street where he received a classical education in Greek and Latin.

Wellesz's father worked in the textile business and his parents initially intended Wellesz to join him in his work, or pursue a career as a civil servant. In order to achieve that aim, his parents were intent upon Wellesz pursuing an education in law. Accordingly, Wellesz entered the University of Vienna as a law student following the completion of his studies at the Franz-Joseph-Gymnasium. However, Wellesz's own career ambitions had been bent towards music for several years prior to his entrance to the University of Vienna. This desire to pursue a music career had been formed after attending a performance of Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz under the baton of Gustav Mahler at the Vienna State Opera on October 21, 1898; a present from his parents on his 13th birthday. This opera so moved Wellesz that he decided he wanted to become a composer. Prior to this experience, Wellesz had already had some excellent music education as a boy, as his mother was a music enthusiast and amateur pianist who encouraged music studies as a hobby. He began his initial music training at a young age studying the piano with his mother's teacher, Carl Frühling.

In 1905, at the age of 19, Wellesz began studying harmony and counterpoint at Eugenie Schwarzwald's school with Arnold Schoenberg while simultaneously attending law classes at the university. Schwarzwald's school became an important part of not only his musical development but also his social life. There he became the conductor of a school choir and he met and befriended the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, the architect Adolf Loos, and the painter Oskar Kokoschka; the latter of whom painted his portrait in 1911. He also met his future wife, Emmy Stross, who was a student at that school. Wellesz's lessons with Schoenberg took place at Schoenberg's Liechtensteinstrasse apartment where he received a thorough and rigorous training in the fundamentals of music. These lessons, however, lasted only a matter of months, and ended when he began studies in musicology with Guido Adler at the University of Vienna later in 1905. Adler had founded the Musicological Institute at the University of Vienna and was a leading editor of the Austrian Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich. He and Schoenberg's dual influences shaped much of Wellesz's musical and scholarly thought. His 1921 book on Schoenberg is still a standard source on Schoenberg's early period.

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