[1900-1967]

Hans (Hanns) Aldo Schimmerling

Hanns Aldo Schimmerling (5 September 1900, Brno -  10 November 1967, Kingston, NY) commenced medicine studies in Vienna, but studied composition and orchestral conducting with Zemlinsky in Prague from 1920 as one of the first students at the newly founded 'Deutsche Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst'. Records also mention Franz Schreker as one of his teachers, as well as reporting a first performance of a new composition in 1920.
In the 1924/25 season Schimmerling conducted at Zemlinsky’s 'Neue Deutsche Theater', where he became a colleague of Viktor Ullmann. His compositions were performed with some regularity, and in one of Zemlinsky’s concerts he conducted the first performance of his own Die Kirschblüte, a work for baritone and large orchestra. The programme also included pieces by Ullmann and Schulhoff.
A year before, his 6 Miniaturen für Kammerorchester (1922) had been premiered at an evening organised by the Prague 'Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen', on which occasion music by Ullmann and Krenek was also played.
Schimmerling first visited the USA in 1926, accompanying the singer Michael Bohnen on the piano. From 1934 he collaborated with the writer Josef Luitpold Stern, who had emigrated from Austria, composing songs for the workers’ movement to Stern’s politically engaged texts. Shortly before Hitler’s occupation of the Czech Socialist Republic, Schimmerling emigrated to the USA and became American citizen in 1944. Only a few of his works have been published, while most are lost.