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Gisella Selden-Goth

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Gisella Selden-Goth (6 June 1884 – 5 September 1975)[1] was a Hungarian author, composer[2] and musicologist who became an American citizen in 1939.[3] She composed at least four string quartets[4] and donated her large collection of original music manuscripts to the Library of Congress.[5]

Biography

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Selden-Goth was born in Budapest to Michael and Rosalia Schlesinger.[6] Her music teachers included Béla Bartók, Ferruccio Busoni, and István Thomán.[4][7] Her set of piano compositions, Vier Präludien, was one of 10 winners (out of 874 submissions) in the 1910 Signale für die musikalische Welt competition in Germany.[8] She married Ernst Goth and they had a daughter, Trudy Goth, who became a dancer and journalist.[9]

Selden-Goth lived in Berlin and Florence, Italy, before emigrating to America in 1938. She returned to Florence in 1950 and remained there until her death in 1975. She served as a music critic for newspapers in Berlin, Prague, Switzerland, and Budapest, most notably for Prager Tagblatt, a German newspaper in Prague.[7] She also wrote books about Busoni and Arturo Toscanini and edited a collection of Felix Mendelssohn's letters.[4][10] She maintained a lengthy correspondence with the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, often discussing their mutual interest in collecting original music scores. After Zweig's suicide, Selden-Goth commented that, "A chamber group in a house or the opportunity to hear a good orchestra might have relieved the tension of that mind tortured by personal forebodings and by the vision of mankind in agony."[7] She also corresponded with composer Ernest Bloch and musicologist Hans Moldenhauer.[11]

Selden-Goth's music is published today by Universal Edition.[4] Her prose works and musical compositions include:

Selected literary publications

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Articles

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  • "A New Collection of Music Manuscripts in the United States", The Musical Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 2, April 1940[12]
  • "Neue Wege der musikalischen Erziehung" [New Ways in Music Education], Die Musik, vol. 16, 1924[13]

Bibliography

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  • Arturo Toscanini (edited by Selden-Goth)[10]
  • Felix Mendelssohn: Letters (edited by Selden-Goth)[14]
  • Ferruccio Busoni: Der Versuch eines Porträts [Ferruccio Busoni: An Attempt at a Portrait][15]

Selected music works

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Chamber music

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  • Quintet, Op. 35 (for strings)[16]
  • String Quartets No. 1, 2, 3, and 4[4]
  • String Trio[4]
  • Suite for Violin and Piano[4]

Piano

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  • Prelude and Fugue for Two Pianos (1956)[4]
  • Vier Präludien, Signale competition winner (1910)[8]

Vocal music

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References

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  1. ^ "Works by Gisella Selden-Goth". Universal Edition. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
  2. ^ Gibbin, Paola; Tozzi, Maria Dina (2023). "Gisella Selden-Goth". In Patrizia Guarnieri (ed.). Intellettuali in fuga dall'Italia fascista. Migranti, esuli e rifugiati per motivi politici o razziali [Gisella Selden-Goth, in Patrizia Guarnieri, Intellectuals Fleeing Fascist Italy. Migrants, exiles and refugees for political or racial reasons] (PDF) (in Italian) (2nd ed.). Firenze: Firenze University Press. doi:10.36253/978-88-5518-648-3. ISBN 978-88-5518-648-3.
  3. ^ "Selden-Goth, Gisela, New York, U.S.". State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794–1943. Retrieved 18 October 2022 – via ancestry.com.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cohen, Aaron I. (1987). International Encyclopedia of Women Composers. Vol. 2. Books & Music (USA). p. 632. ISBN 978-0-9617485-2-4. Retrieved 27 July 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ^ Gisella Selden-Goth Collection, Library of Congress, retrieved 27 July 2024
  6. ^ Robin Rausch. "'Tenderly Guarded Treasure': The Gisella Selden-Goth Collection at the Library of Congress". Library of Congress. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
  7. ^ a b c "Gisella Selden-Goth". casastefanzweig.org.br. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
  8. ^ a b Ten prize winning compositions (69 pages of music), 1910, hdl:1802/2419
  9. ^ "Trudy Goth Dies; Writer On Dance". The New York Times. 14 May 1974. p. 40. Retrieved 27 July 2024. facsimile
  10. ^ a b Dyment, Christopher (2012). Toscanini in Britain. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-789-3.
  11. ^ "Selden-Goth, Gisella, 1884–1975". Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC). Retrieved 18 October 2022.
  12. ^ Selden-Goth, Gisella (1940). "A New Collection of Music Manuscripts in the United States". The Musical Quarterly. 26 (2): 175–185. doi:10.1093/mq/XXVI.2.175. ISSN 0027-4631. JSTOR 738845.
  13. ^ Selden-Goth, Gisella (1924). "Neue Wege der musikalischen Erziehung" [New ways of musical education]. Die Musik. Vol. 16. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
  14. ^ "Felix Mendelssohn: Letters, edited by G. Selden-Goth". Commentary. 1 November 1945. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
  15. ^ Loesser, Arthur (Summer 1964). "Gisella Selden-Goth: Ferruccio Busoni". Notes. Second Series. 21 (3): 362–364. doi:10.2307/894499. ISSN 0027-4380. JSTOR 894499.
  16. ^ a b Altmann, Wilhelm (1920). "Wichtige neue Musikalien, Bücher und Aufsätze über Musik" [Important new music publications, books and essays on music]. Melos [de] (in German). B. Schott's Söhne.
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