Emil Hertzka
Emil Hertzka (3 August 1869 – 9 May 1932) was a pioneering music publisher who helped print and promote many important European works of the 20th century. He was born in Budapest and studied chemistry and music at the University of Vienna. In 1901 he joined Universal Edition, a Vienna-based music publishing house that had just been founded. He became its Director in 1907 and led the company until his death. Hertzka pushed UE to publish new music, and his many letters to leading composers are now a valuable resource for scholars. By 1932, Universal Edition’s catalogue had almost 10,000 items, including works by Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Zemlinsky, Schreker, Casella, Janáček, Szymanowski, Bartók, Kodály, Weill, Eisler, Krenek, Milhaud, and Malipiero. He died in Vienna of a heart attack on 9 May 1932.
After his death, the Emil Hertzka Foundation ran an annual Composition Prize from 1932 to 1938. The first prize, awarded in 1933, was shared by Roberto Gerhard, Norbert von Hannenheim, Julius Schloss, Ludwing Zenk and Leopold Spinner. Other winners included Joseph Matthias Hauer (1934), Viktor Ullmann (1936), Hans Erich Apostel (1937) and Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1938). In 1934 Dallapiccola and Paul Dessau received a Special Acknowledgement.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:12 (CET).