Rezniček, E(mil) N(ikolaus) von (1860-1945)

Austrian composer and conductor. He held several conducting posts and composed light operas. His most successful work was the opera Donna Diana (1894).

He studied law at Graz, but at 22, when he was already married to Milka Thurn, a relation of Felix Weingartner's, he went to Leipzig to study at the Conservatory with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902). He gained stage experience as a theatre conductor in various towns and finally became a military conductor at Prague, where Donna Diana was premiered in 1894. From 1896 to 1899 he was successively court conductor at Weimar and Mannheim. In 1906 he was appointed professor at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin, where he founded a chamber orchestra, and later conducted the Warsaw Opera 1907-08 and the Komische Oper, Berlin 1908-11. He taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin 1920-26.

Works Opera Die Jungfrau von Orleans (after Schiller, 1887), Satanella, Emmerich Fortunat (1889), Donna Diana (after Moreto, 1894), Till Eulenspiegel (1902), Ritter Blaubart, Holofernes (after Hebbel's Judith, 1923), Satuala, Spiel oder Ernst (1930), Der Gondoliere des Dogen (1931); incidental music for Strindberg's Dream Play.

Choral and orchestral Mass in F major, Requiem in D minor, Vater unser for chorus (1919); four symphonies, including Schlemihl (after Chamisso), Tragic, and Ironic); two symphonic suites, Comedy and Idyllic Overtures, fugue in C♯ minor for orchestra; serenata for strings; violin concerto (1925), Introduction and Valse-Caprice for violin and orchestra; Ruhm und Ewigkeit (Nietzsche) for tenor and orchestra.

Chamber three string quartets (1921-32).