Willi Reich

Willi Reich (Vienna, 27 May 1898 – Zurich, 1 May 1980) was a critic and musicologist of Austrian origin who spent most of his career in Switzerland. His importance lies in his role as a populariser and champion of new music, especially the Second Viennese School, within a journalistic milieu that remained attached to tradition.

He studied musicology at the University of Vienna under Lach, Orel and Haas, and obtained his doctorate in 1934 with a dissertation on Martini. At the same time he received private lessons in theory and composition from Berg, between 1927 and 1935, and from Webern, between 1936 and 1938. From 1920 onwards he worked as a critic for several Viennese and foreign newspapers. Encouraged by Berg, he edited the journal 23 – eine Wiener Musikzeitschrift from 1932 to 1937, which harshly denounced the shortcomings of Viennese musical life and supported contemporary composition. In June 1933 the publication had openly criticised National Socialism, and it was banned immediately after the Austrian Anschluss. In 1938 he moved to Basel, where he worked as a freelance writer. In 1948 he joined the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and, between 1959 and 1970, taught at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich; he was made honorary professor in 1958 and full professor in 1967.

Alongside Adorno, Erwin Stein and others, Reich was part of a small group of music journalists who maintained personal contact with the composers of the Second Viennese School and defended their work against an influential press, both in Vienna and beyond. His two monographs on Berg and his book on Schoenberg are still regarded as fundamental works for the study of both composers. He also wrote numerous books, many of them designed to portray poets and musicians through their own words, including studies of Wagner (1948) and Bartók (1958). His many anthologies of writings and testimonies by composers, such as those devoted to Mahler, Bruckner or Chopin, complete an editorial labour that remains a reference for music historiography.