50 YEARS

1942-92

ANGLO-AUSTRIAN MUSIC SOCIETY

Jubilate, exsultate - a Golden Jubilee is truly an occasion for joy. We offer our friends this brief survey of the Society's aims and achievements during these fifty years - we hope they will forgive us a modest sense of pride.

The Society's origins are to be found in the practical concerns of Austrian musicians struggling to survive materially and spiritually in a not always friendly exile, to escape from the harsh government policy of internment of "enemy" aliens, from work permit restrictions which forbade earning their keep by the exercise of their own profession. To keep up their spirits they gave many wonderful concerts in sometimes unpromising surroundings, even though their devotion to music was occasionally exploited in the game of Austrian exile politics.

If it is possible for a Society to have just one founder, that man was Ferdinand Rauter. Once released from internment through intervention of influential musical friends, "Rau" tried to help other Austrian musicians - first to regain freedom, and then the right to live as practising artists. Exactly when his Austrian Musicians' Group turned into the Anglo-Austrian Music Society is not known, but perhaps this mutation was not unconnected with Rau's correspondence with Ralph Vaughan Williams. In the Wigmore Hall programme of the concert on 15 December 1942 - generally reckoned to be the first concert promoted by the new Society - we can read: "To demonstrate mutual understanding and appreciation between the two countries the music of each country will be performed by musicians of the other". Following the wise counsel given, Rau had formed a bi-national committee, with Sir Adrian Boult as president and John Holroyd-Recce, an influential solicitor, as chairman. The new Society flourished, gave many fine concerts and continued to gather friends and supporters, British and Austrian.

When in January 1945 the Society became incorporated the Articles of Association record as members of the Committee Peggy Barwell, Florence Fairbrother, Maud Karpeles, Ferdinand Rauter and Herman Ullrich. So many more have made their contributions since that it would be impossible to list them all, but - though it is invidious to select - we must here record the contributions made by Eric Field-Reid, Alfred Kalmus, Robert Gold, Jani Strasser, Miriam Licettc, Hugo Markbreitcr, Mosco Carner, Peter and Hedy Stadlen, Jacques and Erna Samuel. They, with Rau, formed the "old guard", the backbone of the Committee. They were joined some time in 1946 by Otto Harpner who brought the Anglo-Austrian Music Society and the Anglo-Austrian Society together, acting as Secretary to both. A devoted musical amateur rather than a musician, his secretaryship was one of active but careful management and within the next two or three years he had set the course followed by the Anglo-Austrian Music Society through its first half-century.

This little brochure surveys the main activities and achievements of the Society from 1942 to 1992. It is also meant to record our thanks to the many musicians for their artistic contribution and their constant friendship, to the officers and members of the Society for their counsel and steadfast support, and to all my colleagues on the staff of the Society past and present whose skill, devotion and sheer hard work made it all possible.