Erwin Schulhoff

Czech composer and pianist. Born June 8, 1894 in Prague, Bohemia, died August 18, 1942 in the concentration camp near Weißenburg in Bayern. He was a prolific composer whose work embraced a full panoply of styles and influences. One of the earliest and most successful exponents of art music drawing on jazz, Schulhoff refracts multiple approaches of his time, from Dada to Expressionism, and from a distanced self-mockery to the stolid seriousness of Socialist Realism. Several of his compositions close to the jazz genre were also published under the pseudonyms Hanuš Petr or Jiří Balzár.