Michael Mann (scholar)
German academic (1919–1977)
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Michael Thomas Mann (April 21, 1919 – January 1, 1977) was a German-born musician and professor of German literature.
Life
Born in Munich, Michael Mann was the youngest and sixth child of writer Thomas Mann and Katia Mann.[1] His older siblings were Erika, Klaus, Golo, Monika and Elisabeth. He was of Jewish descent from his mother's side.[2] Due to his being the grandson of Júlia da Silva Bruhns, he was also of Portuguese-Indigenous Brazilian partial descent.[3]
He studied viola and violin in Zürich, Paris and New York City.[citation needed]
He was a viola player in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1942 to 1947 as well as being a solo viola player.[1][4] Accompanied by pianist Yaltah Menuhin, he made a concert tour in 1951 and recorded the 1948 Viola Sonata by Ernst Krenek.[5] He was forced to give up professional music due to a neuropathy.[citation needed]
Mann's tour with Menuhin came to an end when he struck her in a fit of rage. He also was physically abusive to his wife Gret.[6]
Mann gained a master's degree in musicology from Duquesne University and a PhD in German literature from Harvard before joining the German faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 1961.[1][4]
Mann published a number of books on musicology, short stories,[citation needed] an opera libretto and journal articles. Subjects of his publications included Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Schiller, Schubart and his father's works.[1][4]
He was married to Gret and they had two sons, Fridolin "Frido" Mann (born 1940) and Toni as well as an adopted daughter, Raju.[1][7]
He died at age 57 in Orinda, California on 1 January 1977. Reported at the time as a heart attack,[4][1] his death has also been stated to be the result of an "overdose of alcohol and barbiturates" that was either suicidal or accidental.[6] There is a stone with his name on it on his parents' grave in Kilchberg, Switzerland.
Discography
Deutsche Grammophon. Recorded in Hanover, Germany
- Arthur Honegger – Sonata for viola and piano (1920); Michael Mann (viola); Dika Newlin (piano); recorded 19 March 1952
- Ernst Krenek – Sonata for viola and piano (1948); Michael Mann (viola); Yaltah Menuhin (piano); recorded 9 April 1951
- Darius Milhaud - Quatre Visages (1943); Michael Mann (viola); Dika Newlin (piano); recorded 21 May 1952
Reissue: Johanna Martzy/Michael Mann: Complete Deutsche Grammophon recordings. Deutsche Grammophon/eloquence 484 3299 (2021)