Melichar, Alois
Melichar, Alois
Melichar, Alois, Austrian music critic and composer; b. Vienna, April 18, 1896; d. Munich, April 9, 1976. He studied theory at the Vienna Academy of Music with Joseph Marx (1917–20) and at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin with Schreker (1920–23). From 1923 to 1926 he was in the Caucasus, where he collected materials on Caucasian folk songs; then lived in Berlin and Vienna. As a composer, he followed the safe footpath of Reger, Pfitzner, and Graener; he wrote a symphonic poem, Der Dom (1934); Rhapsodie über ein schwedisches Volkslied (1939); Lustspiel- Ouvertüre (1942); lieder; film music. As a music critic, he acquired notoriety by his intemperate attacks on better composers than himself. His publications, written in his virulent, polemical manner, include Die unteilbare Musik (Vienna, 1952), Musik in der Zwangsjacke (Vienna, 1958), and (particularly vicious) Schönberg und die Folgen (Vienna, 1960).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire