Ritchie Boys Wiki

Weisgall, Hugo David (13072714): Difference between revisions

← Older editNewer edit →
VisualWikitext
Add interview video link to Sources
Expand Weisgall biography from Milken Archive artist page
Line 9: Line 9:
|death_year=1997
|death_year=1997
|nativity=Czechoslovakia
|nativity=Czechoslovakia
|enlistment_place=BALTIMORE MARYLAND
|state=U.S. AT LARGE
|overseas=Y
|overseas=Y
|certificate=144
|certificate=144
|education=3 years of high school
|occupation=Unskilled occupations in manufacture of textiles n.e.c.
|marital=Single without dependents
|confidence=medium
|confidence=medium
|class_number=2
|class_number=2
Line 25: Line 20:
|rank_final=Technical Sergeant
|rank_final=Technical Sergeant
|death_place=Long Island, New York
|death_place=Long Island, New York
|alias=Hugo David Weisgall
}}
}}


<div class="soldier-lead">
<div class="soldier-lead">
'''[[Weisgall, Hugo David (13072714)|Hugo David Weisgall]]''' (13 October 1912 – 11 March 1997) was a Moravia-born composer and Ritchie Boy ([[:Category:Class 2|Class 2]]) who conducted Allied musical forces in Britain and later wrote major American operas.
'''Hugo David Weisgall''' (13 October 1912&ndash;11 March 1997) was a Moravia-born [[:Category:Class 2|Class 2]] Ritchie Boy, conductor, and composer who led the BBC Symphony at Royal Albert Hall in 1943 and later wrote major American operas.
</div>
</div>


== Biography ==
== Biography ==
Hugo David Weisgall was born on 13 October 1912 in Ivančice (Eibenschütz), Moravia, then in Austria-Hungary. His family emigrated to Baltimore in 1920; he became a U.S. citizen in 1926. He studied at the Peabody Conservatory and the Curtis Institute, earned a Ph.D. in German literature at Johns Hopkins University (1940), and led ensembles including the Baltimore String Symphony.
Hugo David Weisgall was born on 13 October 1912 in Ivančice (Eibenschütz), Moravia, then in Austria-Hungary, into a family of Bohemian-Austrian cantors. His father, Abba Yosef (Adolph Joseph) Weisgall, was cantor at the local synagogue and a lieder and light-opera singer; in America he added the second ''l'' to the surname, which his brother, the Zionist leader and producer Meyer Weisgal, did not. Weisgall later said he sang in a synagogue choir by the age of three or four and learned both Ashkenazi liturgy and the Western song-and-opera repertory from his father, whom he accompanied at the piano.


Weisgall trained at Camp Ritchie ([[:Category:Class 2|Class 2]]). A 1943 newspaper report identifies him as a technical sergeant assigned to London as a liaison between the United States and governments in exile. While serving in the Army he conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall on 29 July 1943 before an audience of about 6,000 for the premiere of his overture ''American Comedy 1943'', which he had begun while training at Camp Ritchie—reportedly the first time an American had conducted the BBC orchestra in its promenade-concert series.
The family immigrated in 1920 and settled in Baltimore, where Abba Yosef served more than forty years at Chizuk Amuno Congregation. Hugo became a U.S. Citizen in 1926. He conducted the synagogue choir, organized the Chizuk Amuno Choral Society, and, with cantor Jacob Barkin, made an LP of cantorial-choral works. As a child he staged a neighborhood “Knights of the Round Table” play (casting himself as Arthur) and later acted in small repertory companies. He studied at the Peabody Conservatory, intermittently with Roger Sessions, and at the Curtis Institute with Fritz Reiner and Rosario Scalero, earning diplomas in conducting and composition. Shortly before the war he went to Europe hoping to study with Béla Bartók, who would take no more students. In 1940 Johns Hopkins University awarded him a Ph.D. For a dissertation on primitivism in seventeenth-century German poetry. He also led ensembles including the Baltimore String Symphony.


After the war he served as an assistant cultural officer in Prague (Foreign Service, from November 1946). Weisgall became one of the leading American opera composers of his generation—works include ''The Tenor'', ''The Stronger'', ''Six Characters in Search of an Author'', and ''Esther''—and taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Juilliard, and Queens College. He died on 11 March 1997 on Long Island, New York.
A 1943 newspaper report places him in London as a liaison with governments in exile. On 29 July 1943 he conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall before about 6,000 people in the premiere of his overture ''American Comedy 1943'', begun while he was at Camp Ritchie—reportedly the first time an American had conducted the BBC orchestra in its promenade series. The Milken Archive biography records that he was for a time an aide-de-camp to General George S. Patton and that language skill led to diplomatic work: assistant military attaché in London, then cultural attaché in postwar Prague, where he conducted leading European orchestras and programmed American music.
 
He kept composing in those posts. In London a war-poetry anthology prompted the song cycle ''Soldier Songs'' (1944–46), his first important work. In a Brussels air-raid shelter after the Battle of the Bulge he began ''The Dying Airmen'', to words published anonymously that he believed were by W. H. Auden from the Spanish Civil War. After seeing hospital conditions at Theresienstadt (Terezín) he set Wilfred Owen’s “Futility.” Without waiting for his superior’s approval, he later delayed the sealing of certain Czech border areas so that more refugees and camp survivors could get out before the Iron Curtain closed; the officer, the Milken account says, congratulated him in private.
 
He declined permanent European conducting posts and came home. He founded the Chamber Society of Baltimore and the Hilltop Opera Company, directed the Baltimore Institute of Musical Arts, and taught at Johns Hopkins from 1951 to 1957 while still working with synagogue choirs. Dearest to him was the Jewish Theological Seminary: from the 1952 opening of the Cantors Institute (later the H. L. Miller Cantorial School) until he retired in 1996 he chaired the faculty and shaped cantorial training in the United States, teaching synagogue prayer modes (nusah ha-tefillah) as well as composition, and advising doctoral work by composers including Herman Berlinski and Miriam Gideon. He became a professor at Queens College in 1961 (Distinguished Professor on retirement in 1983) and taught thirteen years at the Juilliard School.
 
His operas include ''The Tenor'' (1950), ''The Stronger'' (1952, for Hilltop), ''Six Characters in Search of an Author'' (1956), which first made his international name, ''Purgatory'' (1958, after Yeats), ''Athaliah'' (1964), ''Nine Rivers from Jordan'' (1968, on the Holocaust, Zionism, and European collapse), and ''Esther''. Judaic concert works include ''The Golden Peacock'' (1980), the ''Graven Images'' chamber pieces from a 1966 CBS film score, the Reform Friday-evening service ''Evening Liturgies'', and ''Love’s Wounded'', on poems of Yehuda Halevi. He was president of the American Music Center (1963–73) and of the League of Composers/ISCM, composer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome in 1966 and at Lyric Opera of Chicago (1988–97), and president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1990–93) after election in 1975. Honors included three Guggenheim fellowships, Opera America’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Academy’s Gold Medal for music (both 1994), Columbia’s William Schuman Prize, and honorary doctorates.
 
At his death he was sketching further Yiddish folksong settings, operas after Jean Anouilh, and, with librettist Charles Kondek, a New York City Opera project on John Hersey’s ''The Wall'' about the Warsaw Ghetto. Weisgall died on 11 March 1997 on Long Island, New York.


== Research notes ==
== Research notes ==
* DEML instruction team
* DEML instruction team.
* OCR (83%) of `5774657545889452.jpg` (Camp Ritchie) — rank mentioned: Sergeant.
* OCR (83%) of [[:File:5774657545889452.jpg]] — rank mentioned: Sergeant; page keeps Technical Sergeant from the 1943 BBC/Stars and Stripes coverage.
* Father added a second ''l'' in America (Weisgall); uncle Meyer Weisgal did not.
* Milken Archive artist biography (Neil W. Levin and Bruce Saylor) is the source for the Patton aide-de-camp claim (the Milken text says “George F. Patton”), the Czech border delay, and the Terezín / ''Soldier Songs'' wartime composing episodes.
* Infobox nativity remains Czechoslovakia (roster); birth place is Ivančice in Austria-Hungary (1912).


== Gallery ==
== Gallery ==
Line 125: Line 130:
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed soldier-timeline">
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed soldier-timeline">
<div class="soldier-timeline-body">
<div class="soldier-timeline-body">
* 13 October 1912 — Born in Ivančice, Moravia.
* 13 October 1912 — Born in Ivančice (Eibenschütz), Moravia, Austria-Hungary.
* 1920 / 1926 — Emigrated to Baltimore; naturalized U.S. citizen.
* 1920 — Family immigrates; settles in Baltimore (Chizuk Amuno Congregation).
* 1940 — Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University.
* 1926 — Naturalized U.S. citizen.
* Camp Ritchie Class 2 — Military intelligence training; wartime conducting in Britain.
* 1940 — Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University (primitivism in 17th-century German poetry).
* 13 November 1946 — Assistant Cultural Officer, Praha (Foreign Service).
* Camp Ritchie Class 2 — Military intelligence training; begins overture ''American Comedy 1943''.
* Postwar — Operas and teaching (JTS, Juilliard, Queens College).
* 29 July 1943 — Conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall (technical sergeant; London liaison).
* 1944–1946 — ''Soldier Songs''; Brussels after the Bulge; Terezín; Czech border delay for refugees.
* 13 November 1946 — Assistant Cultural Officer, Prague (Foreign Service).
* 1951–1957 — Teaches at Johns Hopkins; Chamber Society of Baltimore / Hilltop Opera.
* 1952–1996 — Chairman of the faculty, JTS Cantors Institute.
* 1956 — ''Six Characters in Search of an Author''.
* 1961–1983 — Professor, then Distinguished Professor, Queens College; Juilliard.
* 1975 — Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (president 1990–1993).
* 11 March 1997 — Died on Long Island, New York.
* 11 March 1997 — Died on Long Island, New York.
</div>
</div>
Line 136: Line 148:


== Sources ==
== Sources ==
* [https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/hugo-weisgall Milken Archive artist biography of Hugo Weisgall (Neil W. Levin and Bruce Saylor)]
* [[Ritchie Boy Interviews#Hugo David Weisgall|Milken Archive oral history (watchlist card)]]
* [https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/hugo-weisgall Milken Archive artist biography of Hugo Weisgall]
* [https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/116737?embed=true&media_player=true Milken Archive oral history with Hugo David Weisgall]
* [https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/116737?embed=true&media_player=true Milken Archive oral history with Hugo David Weisgall]
* [[:File:Weisgall_Hugo_D_13072714_Stars_and_Stripes_1943-07-30.jpg|Stars and Stripes, 30 July 1943 — coverage related to Weisgall (RB Archive)]]
* [[:File:Weisgall_Hugo_D_13072714_Stars_and_Stripes_1943-07-30.jpg|Stars and Stripes, 30 July 1943 — coverage related to Weisgall (RB Archive)]]
Retrieved from "https://ritchieboys.org/wiki/Weisgall,_Hugo_David_(13072714)"