Rebay, Ferdinand

FERDINAND REBAY (1880–1953) 

Ferdinand Rebay (born 1880, Vienna) studied both violin and piano from an early age. His mother had studied piano with Anton Bruckner, and his father co-owned a publishing firm Rebay & Robitschek. 

At the age of only ten, he went to the Abbey of Stift Heiligenkreuz as a chorister, and during the next five years, he received a solid musical education. In 1904, aged 24, he completed his studies at the Konservatorium der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna with bravura by composing the work ‘Erlkönig’, which his legendary teacher Robert Fuchs declared was the finest work to have been presented at the conservatory in his three decades teaching there.  

Bergmann Edition is home to the Ferdinand Rebay Project, publishing some 300 compositions (all with a guitar part) by the composer.  His fascinating melodic output spans the late romantic period and the first half of the twentieth century.