István Anhalt

István Anhalt was born in Budapest, Hungary to a Jewish family on April 12, 1919.[6] He was son of Arnold Anhalt and Katalin Anhalt (née Herzfeld),[7] When he was still an infant, Anhalt's parents separated; he lived with his mother until the age of twelve, attending elementary school from 1925 to 1929. Although she had some interest in serious music and opera, his mother was not especially musical, she did have a piano; Anhalt began taking piano lessons at the age of six with a teacher who lived in his neighborhood and later from a family friend until he was twelve years of age.[8] From the age of ten, he attended the Dániel Berzsenyi Secondary school, failing several subjects at first but later excelling and graduating in 1937.[9] He also attended outdoor musical performances on Margaret Island.[8]

At age twelve, Anhalt went to live with his father, who had remarried in 1931. Encouraged by his father's love of music, Anhalt developed a good ear for harmony, and taught himself to play the violin.[8] Anhalt learned to speak four languages, Hungarian, German, French, and English.[10]

His father's financial troubles, his half-sister's birth in 1935, and tension between him and his step mother led Anhalt to move again a few years later to stay with his maternal grandparents.[9] At about that time, Anhalt overheard László Gyopár, a peer from a neighboring school, play a piece he had composed himself at the piano. Anhalt recognized the influence of Bach on the piece, and, admiring Gyopár's compositional achievements, decided to learn how to write music and compose his own pieces.[11] Anhalt and Gyopár became good friends, and soon after, Anhalt began to receive private harmony lessons with Géza Falk. Gyopár was attending the Academy of Music at the time, where Anhalt audited Zoltán Kodály's class from 1936 to 1937 before passing the entrance exam and joining his friend at the academy.[11]

Anhalt studied piano with Kodaly at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music; he graduated with exceptional marks in 1941. He also continued his studies for the next year and a half by attending classes from Turkish linguistics to Folklore at Pázmány University and attending a seminar by János Ferencsik for conductors.[12]

Anhalt was drafted into the forced labour service of the Hungarian Army in 1940 during World War II.[13]

In 1942, during the Second World War, Anhalt and his best friend at the academy were both forced to enter a forced-labour brigade for young Jewish men. Anhalt's friend was killed by a soldier in the unit.[14] Anhalt escaped from the brigade, disguised himself as a seminarian, and hid until the war was over.[14] He then made his way to Paris, where he had access to music teachers and abundant artistic stimulation.[15]

In the late 1940s, he studied under Louis Fourestier, Nadia Boulanger and Soulima Stravinsky before emigrating to Canada in 1949.[16]

Anhalt emigrated to Canada in 1949, as a recipient of a Lady Davis Fellowship.[17] He settled in Montreal, and soon met Beate Frankenberg, a biochemist.[15] The pair married in 1952, and together they have two daughters, Carol Greaves and Helen Jennifer Marcello, and two grandchildren.[18]

For twenty two years Anhalt taught analysis and composition at McGill University in the Faculty of Music.[18] He established the Theory and Composition Departments,[17] He established the music composition program for the institution, was chairman for the Theory Department, and developed and directed the McGill University Electronic Music Studio (EMS).[15] He composed continually during that time as well.[17]

Anhalt met George Rochberg at an International Conference of Composers at the Stratford Festival in Ontario during the summer of 1960, and the two became friends. Rochberg was born in New Jersey, and both come from a Jewish background.[19]

Anhalt's mixed work schedule of administration, composition, and teaching was one he carried with him to Kingston, Ontario in 1971 when he became the head of Queen's University's Department of Music.[15] He remained in this position until 1981. He continued to teach at the university until 1984 when he retired.[17] During his years at Queen's University, Anhalt continued to write, compose and teach.[17] His composition La Tourangelle premiered in July 1975, and soon after he began to work on another piece, which would be his second opera, Winthrop. All the while, he also worked on his monograph Alternative Voices.[20] He became a mentor for a number of his students, many of whom kept in touch with him until the final years of his life.[18]

After his retirement, Anhalt continued to composer, and to write scholarly and other articles.[17] He died at the age of 92, on February 24, 2012, in Kingston, at St. Mary's of the Lake Hospital.[18]

Anhalt's early composing focused on a variety of works for chorus, solo voice, ensembles, and instrumental soloists. This period ended with the finalization of his work Symphony No. 1, which won Anhalt both a national and an international reputation.[21]

The next brief period in Anhalt's musical career was entirely dedicated to electronic music where he produced four compositions, and studying first-hand the newest developments and media during that time, in order to establish fresh and current concepts for his original work.[21]

From 1962 until 1971 Anhalt reworked, consolidated and expanded his experiences during the two previous periods. He combined electronic sounds with the sounds of the chorus or the orchestra in his Symphony of Modules, Foci, and Cento. Anhalt also adopted a more flexible syntax, as well as a larger musical vocabulary to create new vocal and instrumental sounds.[21] He began to use timbre, timing, and musical densities in new ways in his compositions.[23]

La Tourangelle is the first of three large scale works created by Anhalt after 1971.[24] It is an hour-long piece that premiered in 1975, in a performance broadcast by CBC Radio. This "musical tableau" was composed for an orchestra of 16 players, five singer-narrators, and pre-recorded tapes for five operators. Its theme is the pursuit of God and meaning,[24] and is based on the life of one of the earliest French women to settle in Canada, Marie de l’Incarnation.[25]

Winthrop is a parallel piece to La Tourangelle, but focused on English Canada.[15] The story is based on John Winthrop, a 17th-century Englishman who was the founder and governor of Boston, Massachusetts.[24] It was completed in March 1983, and calls for a mixed choir, six solo singers, an instrumental ensemble of no less than 30 players, and a boys’ choir.[24] Anhalt described this "musical pageant" as an exploration into the spiritual and personal aspects of a man, depicting how these supply meaning and significance to his actions.[24]

Published in 1984, Alternative Voices is a written study of linguistics as a way of acquiring an understanding of the human voices’ potential in a choral compositional, as well as a contemporary vocal, context. In about 1967 Anhalt had started studies of the reflection of personalty through the voice in the composition classes he taught; he concentrated on this research while on his first sabbatical leave from 1976 to 1977.[26] The work received favourable reviews, and was included in the list the 1984 outstanding academic books by Choice.[27]

In Alternative Voices, Anhalt makes recurrent references to some Canadian composers, as well as their music.[28] He discusses the role of Canadian music and composers in the context of present-day thought in contemporary Western art, music, and philosophy.[28] Rhythm, theatre, poetry, performing techniques, sound, speech, and the roots of language and music are explored, their components interconnected, as well as their usage are examined.[24]

The publication of his work Alternative Voices and the finalization of Winthrop occurred in the same year that Anhalt retired from university teaching,.[26]