Vienna 1885 – 1974, Oxford England
Wellesz neither studied nor taught at the mdw, though his influence as composer and scholar was significant. He joined Guido Adler’s Musicological Institute in 1904, pursuing studies in jurisprudence and composition privately with Arnold Schönberg at the same time. Interest in early music resulted in the incorporation of Baroque pageantry in his own highly successful operas, written in occasional collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Wellesz was also an early ethnomusicologist, and under the influence of his art-historian wife, Emmy Wellesz, née Stross, he developed a fascination with the music of Byzantium, subsequently helping to decipher its notation. Exile led him to Oxford University, where he was influential within the nascent Early Music Movement. After the war, he reaffirmed his Austro-German musical identity by composing 9 symphonies. Persistent antisemitism after the war precluded any prospect of his return to his former professorship at the University of Vienna.
