Viktor Rannicher

Viktor Rannicher was born on 3 July 1885 in Brno (at that time Austria-Hungary, today Czech Republic). He attended school in Opava and completed in 1904. Then he moved to Vienna and enrolled at the university to study law. Viktor Rannicher completed his studies with a doctoral thesis. For the next two years he continued to study music composition under Josef Labor as well as medicine. From 1910 to 1917 Viktor Rannicher first worked as a lawyer for the public service. In 1918 he switched the position and worked at the Ministry of Health where he took care of the youth welfare and national health. Viktor Rannicher quit from public service in 1925 on his own wish to work as a freelancer. In the following years he fulfilled executive positions in different exhibitions about health issues: Hygiene-Ausstellung (Vienna, 1925), Die Ernährung (Berlin, 1928), Sozialer Fortschritt (Paris, 1928), Internationale Hygieneausstellung (Dresden, 1931). From 1930 to 1938 Viktor Rannicher was director of the Austrian union of advertising experts and parallel from 1929 to 1938 head of the Vienna branch of the Austrian youth advisory and support service. Due to the annexion of Austria by the Nazi regime in 1938 Viktor Rannicher was deposed from all of his positions and was put in place not before 1945.
Viktor Rannicher died from arteriosclerosis on 11 August 1946 in Vienna (Austria).

Viktor Rannicher composed only in his leisure time and for his own delight. He did not promote his works and no artist championed his compositions. For that reason no work catalogue is known. None of his musical works was published therefore no information about his output exist.

Songs

In my possession are autograph manuscripts of three songs for voice and piano by Viktor Rannicher. The works are titled

• Traum (words by Robert Hohlbaum)
• Mainacht (words by Robert Hohlbaum)
• Großmütterchen (words by Gustav Krüger)

The manuscripts are not dated, but one manuscript bears the name "Agnes Mattausch", a local Vienna singer who was active around 1915 (at least in newspaper articles). It is also interesting to learn that poet Robert Hohlbaum was born in 1886 (so a year later than Viktor Rannicher) and also attended school in Opava. So there is a reasonable hypothesis that the two knew each other personally. Robert Hohlbaum published his first book with poems in 1916, so that all lead to a possible composition date around 1920.