Gottfried von Einem

Austrian composer

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Gottfried von Einem (born Jan. 24, 1918, Bern, Switz.—died July 12, 1996, Oberdürnbach, Austria) was an Austrian composer whose operas and orchestral works combine late-19th-century Romanticism with 20th-century compositional practices such as dissonance and atonality as well as elements of jazz.

The son of an Austrian military attaché, Einem was educated in Germany and England. He helped several people escape from Nazi Germany, and in 1938 he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned for four months. After his release he became a conductor and coach at the Berlin State Opera and the Bayreuth Festival. He studied (1941–43) with the composer Boris Blacher, who later wrote the librettos for four of Einem’s operas.

Einem’s first stage work, the ballet Prinzessin Turandot (1944), established his musical credentials. In 1945 he moved to Salzburg, Austria. His first opera, Dantons Tod (Danton’s Death), with a text by Blacher based on Georg Büchner’s play, was produced in 1947 at the Salzburg Festival. The opera Der Prozess (The Trial), a work inspired by Einem’s 1938 arrest and by Franz Kafka’s novel, was first performed in 1953. Einem composed several symphonic works for American orchestras, including the Philadelphia Symphony (1960). His opera Der Besuch der alten Dame (1970; The Visit of the Old Woman), with a libretto by Friedrich Dürrenmatt based on his play, is considered to be Einem’s greatest operatic success. His other works include a piano concerto (1955) and the opera Kabale und Liebe (1975; Cabal and Love), based on Friedrich von Schiller’s play. Einem’s best-known operas reflect the darkness of the stories that inspired them.