Michael Mann (scholar)

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 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, 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 [de] (born 1940) and Toni as well as an adopted daughter, Rhau.^[1]^[6]

He died in Orinda, California on 1 January 1977.^[4] 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)