Karl Weigl

Biography

Karl Ignaz Weigl (February 2, 1881August 11, 1949) was born in Vienna, the son of a bank official who was also a keen amateur musician. Alexander Zemlinsky took him as a private pupil in 1896. Weigl went to school at the Franz-Joseph-Gymnasium and graduated from there in 1899. After that, he continued his studies at the Vienna Music Academy, where he became a composition pupil of Robert Fuchs, and also enrolled at the University of Vienna, studying musicology under Guido Adler, having Anton Webern as a classmate. His only opera, Der Rattenfänger von Hameln, premiered in Vienna in 1932.

When the Nazis occupied Austria, in 1938, Weigl emigrated to the United States, together with his second wife, Valerie (Vally) and his son. He obtained a number of increasingly important teaching posts: at the Hartt School of Music, at Brooklyn College, at the Boston Conservatory and, from 1948 on, at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. He was an important early member of ACA. He died in New York in 1949.

Weigl wrote many compositions including symphonies, chamber music pieces, string quartets, and songs for solo piano. The ACA Archive has preserved more than 200 Weigl scores, which are available for sale and rental through the American Composers Alliance.

Photo of the composer taken by Ernst Kassowitz, near Seattle, in 1947; courtesy of the ACA Archives, Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland.

  • ACE Publications

    81 title(s)
    Composer Title SCORING/INSTRUMENTATION Year
    Karl Weigl AND THERE YOU STOOD
    low voice, pf
    Karl Weigl BILDER UND GESCHICHTEN, PICTURES AND TALES op 2 pf
    Karl Weigl BLAUE NACHT (BLUE NIGHT) mezzo sop,pf
    Karl Weigl CAPRICCIO pf-4 hands
    Karl Weigl CHILDREN'S SONGS for high voice and piano high voice, pf
    Karl Weigl CRADLE SONG
    voice, piano
    Karl Weigl DANCE OF THE FURIES - TANZ DER ERINNYEN pf
    Karl Weigl EIN GLEICHES (SIMILITUDE),op 1 no 6 low voice, pf
    Karl Weigl EIN STELLDICHEIN (A RENDEZVOUS) sop, str sextet (2-2-2)
    Karl Weigl EIN STELLDICHEIN - Piano Vocal score high voice, piano
    Karl Weigl FIVE DUETS FOR SOPRANO AND BARITONE WITH PIANO Soprano, Baritone, and Piano
    Karl Weigl Five Songs for Soprano and String Quartet, Op. 40, Piano-Vocal Score Soprano and Piano
    Karl Weigl Five Songs for Soprano and String Quartet, Op. 40, Full score and 4 parts Soprano and String Quartet
    Karl Weigl FIVE SONGS FROM 'PHANTASUS' op. 9
    Soprano or Mezzo-Soprano, piano
    Karl Weigl FIVE SONGS (FÜNF LIEDER) op 23 high voice, pf
    Karl Weigl FIVE SONGS, Op 10, No. 4 med-low voice, pf
    Karl Weigl FIVE SONGS, op 3 Tenor, piano
    Karl Weigl FIVE SONGS, Op 8 med voice, pf
    Karl Weigl FOLKSONGS FROM MANY LANDS chor OR solo voices,pf
    Karl Weigl FOUR BAGATELLES, for Wind Quintet and Piano winds:1-1-1-1,hn,pf
    Karl Weigl FOUR POEMS
    satb with pf reh only
    Karl Weigl FOUR SEASONS CANTATA Children's choir SSA, pf
    Karl Weigl FOUR SHORT PIECES, for 4 Clarinets or 4 Violins and Piano
    4 Clarinets (or 4 Violins) & Pf
    Karl Weigl Four Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn for four solo voices and piano / Vier Lieder aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn 4 solo singers SATB and piano

    Additional Works

    Boosey/Imagem

    AT THE CHICKEN FARM                 
    DUSK HOUR                 
    LULLABY
    MUSIC FOR THE YOUNG
    PICTURES FROM CHILDHOOD
    RAIN FALL
    RHAPSODY 
    SYMPHONY NO 6   
    TWO PIECES FOR VIOLIN CELLO AND PIANO, OP.39  
    VIOLIN CONCERTO