(Ne)poznati skladatelj Marcel Tyberg (1893-1944)

Abstract

Marcel Tyberg (1893-1944) composer, organist and music teacher, was born into a musical family of Polish origin in Vienna, Austria. In the year 1910, the Tyberg family moved away from Vienna and settled in Volosko, a resort on the Kvarner Bay, at that time part of the Austrian territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Tyberg and his wife had performed in Opatija in the year 1903, before having moved there. Marcelo Tyberg, the father, was the principal teacher of the »Hertzka« music school in Vienna (1881-1882), orchestra leader at the Regional Theatre and the headmaster of the music school (1983-1987) in Lemberg, the capital at that time of the Austrian Province of Galicia, today’s Lavov in Ukraine. Wanda Tyberg was an accomplished pianist with a rich concert career. She studied in Vienna in the class of the famous pianist Theodor Leschetizky. The first performances of Marcel Tyberg’s works were recorded in the early 1920s, when his mother Wanda Tyberg performed his Sonata and Legend for Piano, while the Rijeka branch of the Italian Orchestral Association performed his first orchestral piece, Symphony No. 1 in C Minor at the G. Verdi Municipal Theatre in Rijeka. Marcel Tyberg left an imposing music opus, three Symphonies, a Scherzo and Finale for Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, Masses, one Piano Trio, two Piano Sonatas, two Studies for Piano, a Legend for Piano, a String Sextet, 36 Solo Songs, a Te Deum for Choir, Soloists and Organ, and other compositions. From 1938, his musical activities become overshadowed by the daily repressive and persecuting practices of the Italian Kingdom Fascist regime. Namely, in February 1939, due to the Jewish origin of one of his parents and in spite of his being Catholic, Marcel Tyberg was entered into the Fascist registry of the »Jewish race« for the Municipality of Opatija. It was on the basis of this evidence that he was arrested in Opatija on 4 July 1944, during the period of German occupation which had been established in the autumn of 1943. Soon afterwards, he was deported to the Nazi camp Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste, and then to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Other details of his Calvary are still unknown. The composer’s musical legacy is in the United States today. Namely, while anticipating a possible deportation, Tyberg allegedly entrusted his works to Milan Mihich, who later immigrated to the U.S. His son, Enrico Mihich, continued safeguarding them. Owing to his efforts, the Tyberg Musical Legacy Fund was later established at the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies in Buffalo, with the aim of obtaining the funds for their publication. Recent research on the life and work of Marcel Tyberg in the Kvarner region has uncovered the autograph of 26 Preludes for Organ, the work that Tyberg wrote for his Rijeka friends, the pianist Wilma and the organist Remo Venucci.