Edmund Eysler

Edmund Eysler was born as Salomon Eisler on 12 March 1874 in Vienna (at that time Austria-Hungary, today Austria). He was the son of a merchant family and was originally intended to pursue a career in engineering. He attended school in Vienna and began his musical education at an early age, receiving his first piano lessons at the age of six. After a varied school education, he decided to devote himself to music and enrolled in the Vienna Conservatory around 1890. Already at that time he no longer used his birth name and adopted the name Edmund Eysler. At the conservatory he studied piano with Anton Door, as well as harmony and counterpoint with Robert Fuchs, and composition with Johann Nepomuk Fuchs and Robert Fuchs. He completed his studies with distinction and was trained as a piano teacher and Kapellmeister.
After graduating, Eysler initially worked as a piano teacher and accompanist, including appearances at musical-literary evenings in the salon of Bertha von Suttner. Around 1901 he obtained a position as a Kapellmeister. In his early career he composed chamber music, piano works, the opera "Fest auf Solhaug", and the ballet "Schlaraffenland", though these early stage works were not performed.
Through contacts with the librettist Ignaz Schnitzer and the publisher Josef Weinberger, he reworked the opera "Der Hexenspiegel" into an operetta. This resulted in "Bruder Straubinger", which premiered on 20 February 1903 in Vienna and marked his professional breakthrough. In the following years he worked as a composer and répétiteur and was active at venues such as Gabor Steiner’s "Venedig in Wien" and Danzers Orpheum. He subsequently composed a large number of operettas, including "Die Schützenliesel" (1905), "Der unsterbliche Lump" (1910), "Der Frauenfresser" (1911), and "Der lachende Ehemann" (1913), many of which were staged at Viennese theatres.
In 1927 his operetta "Die gold’ne Meisterin" premiered at the Theater an der Wien and became one of his most successful works. Over the course of his career he composed around sixty operettas and remained active in Vienna as a composer, conductor, and répétiteur.
Edmund Eysler received several official honors during his lifetime. In 1927 he was made an honorary citizen of Vienna, in 1934 he was awarded the Golden Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, and in 1949 he was awarded the Ring of Honour of the City of Vienna.
During the period of National Socialist rule, his works were banned because of his Jewish origin, and he survived the war years in Vienna under the protection of friends and family. After 1945 he resumed his activities and achieved another stage success with the operetta "Wiener Musik" in 1947.
Edmund Eysler died on 4 October 1949 in Vienna (Austria) as the result of a fall from a stage.

Der Tag im Paradies

In my possession is the manuscript of the piano reduction of the operetta "Ein Tag im Paradies" by Edmund Eysler. The work was composed in 1913 on a libretto by Leo Stein and Bela Jenbach and premiered the same year. The publishing house Doblinger printed two piano reductions in 1914: one was subtitled "Partiturstimme" (by Eysler himself?) and the other one was an arrangement by the composer Victor Wögerer. The manuscript in my possession is the autograph of the Wögerer arrangement and in his hand. The sets includes the complete operetta in piano reduction (with the plate number D.5227 written at the bottom of the pages) and individual songs: Servus Wien! (D.5242), Im Herzen da klingt eine Saite so fein (D.5240), Das ist der Walzer der Saison (D.5239), Walzer der Saison (D.5245), Parodistische Scene (D.5254), Nur eine Witwe (D.5253) and Servus Wien! (D.5252). All these versions were published beside of the last one.

There is little known about Victor Wögerer and therefore I would like to present a short biography:

Victor Wögerer was born on 6 April 1868 in Vienna. His father was the silk ribbon manufacturer Ferdinand Wögerer. Apart from this, there is no biographical information about his family, childhood, or studies. His name first appears in newspapers in 1891, when he was a member of the carnival committee of the “Kaufmännischer Ball” and had composed a polka française titled "Pour acquit" for that year’s festivities.
In 1901, a Viennese newspaper mentioned him as a musician in a concert of the “Bildhauser-Männergesangverein” and described his profession as “solo repetiteur.” In 1904, Victor Wögerer composed a joint work with Franz Simandl and Josef Roscher.
These snippets suggest that Victor Wögerer was part of Vienna’s upper class and musically active, which makes it likely that he had studied music beforehand. At some point, he must have taken a position at the publishing house Doblinger, as his name appears in connection with reductions or arrangements of works by other composers published there (for example, the Vilja-Lied by Franz Lehar).
In 1933, Victor Wögerer was a member of the committee organizing the festivities for the 60th birthday of Edmund Eysler, together with Bernhard Herzmansky, the head of Doblinger. Victor Wögerer died on 28 December 1944 in Vienna.