Ernest Kanitz

Ernest Kanitz (born Ernst Kanitz; 9 April 1894 – 7 April 1978) was an Austrian-American composer and pedagogue. Biography Kanitz was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary on 9 April 1894. Born Ernst, he changed his name to Ernest in order to differentiate himself from a Viennese concert manager of the same name. He studied law at the University of Vienna concurrently pursuing piano lessons and studying theory and music composition. He graduated in 1918. Schreker conducted the first performance of his Lustige Ouvertüre (Cheerful Overture) in the autumn of 1918. Following the performance, the overture was described as “a witty, pretty composition” and referred to as his best-known work in Musikblätter des Anbruch (1921). In 1921, he received initial exposure through the première under Alexander von Zemlinsky of his oratorio Das Hohelied (The Song of Songs). This enabled him to take a professorship which commenced in 1922 at the Neues Konservatorium where he taught analysis, theory and composition for 16 years. On 4 February 1926, Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss gave the successful première of Kanitz’s Four Orchestral Songs. He founded the Vienna Women’s Chorus in 1930 which he conducted