Walter Arlen

Walter Arlen (; July 31, 1920 – September 2, 2023) was an Austrian and American composer, focused on songs for voice and piano. Just after completing school, he fled the Nazi regime in Vienna for the United States, where he worked as a music critic for the Los Angeles Times, and a professor of music at the Loyola Marymount University. He was recognised as a composer late in life.

Life and career Walter Aptowitzer was born in Vienna on July 31, 1920, to a middle-class Jewish family. His parents ran Warenhaus Dichter, a department store founded by his grandfather in 1890. At age five, his grandfather took him to musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch, who discovered that he had perfect pitch, and recommended that he take piano lessons. His father was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp

Arlen worked as a journalist and music critic for the Los Angeles Times, first as an assistant to Albert Goldberg who was music critic from 1952 to 1980. It gave him first-hand experience of the musical life of the city. He founded the music department at Loyola University Chicago in 1969, and was emerited in 1990. Arlen established friendships with numerous other German and Austrian émigrées, including Stravinsky, Milhaud, Villa-Lobos, and Carlos Chávez. Arlen returned to composition only after retiring from the journalist post in the 1980s.

Arlen was interviewed at length for the 2023 Netflix documentary Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate; he talked about his first love as a teenager, Fülöp "Lumpi" Loránt, a Hungarian Jew and family friend, who was murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

Works Arlen composed 65 works, mostly for voice and piano. In the 1980s, he set poetry by Saint John of the Cross which his partner Howard Myers had given to him. His works were published by Doblinger. Excerpt from The Song of Songs, setting excerpts from Song of Songs Four Robert Frost Songs, setting poetry by Robert Frost Five Songs of Love and Yearning, setting texts by John of the Cross Sonnets to Orpheus, setting Rilke's poetry "Es geht wohl anders", setting a poem by Eichendorff Sonnets of Shakespeare, setting some sonnets by Shakespeare "Le Tombeau de Gabriel Fauré", setting a poem by Rilke The poet in Exile, setting poems by Czesław Miłosz Endymion, setting poems by Constantine P. Cavafy "Wiegenlied", setting a poem by Paul Heyse

Recordings Arlen's works were recorded by Gramola, after they were discovered late in his life by Michael Haas who led the degenerate music program at Decca Records. The first CD of Arlen's music was released when he was 92 years old. Vnukowski also produced a video on the occasion of Arlen's centenary. 2012: (Things turn out differently), Rebecca Nelsen (soprano), Christian Immler (baritone), Danny Driver (piano), 2 CDs, Gramola 2014: , Rebecca Nelsen, Christian Immler, Daniel Vnukowski, Daniel Hope, 2 CDs, Gramola 2015: "Wien, du allein": Memories of an Exiled Wandering Viennese Jew Rebecca Nelsen, Daniel Vnukowski, 2 CDs, Gramola 2011: 2015: of the city of Vienna 2020: Honorary citizen of Bad Sauerbrunn