Walter Brenner

Walter Brenner (1906-1969) was a South African-born composer, music publisher, and copyist who fled Nazi Germany to establish a musical career in the United States. His work spanned Jewish liturgical music, orchestral compositions, and professional copying work for major Hollywood studios.

Born on January 21, 1906, in Wynberg, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, Brenner was the son of Abraham Brenner and Sarah Mehaly, who was of Hungarian descent. Both parents were Jewish. Due to a severe diabetic condition present at birth, his naming was delayed until later in infancy.

The Brenner family relocated to Berlin before 1930, where Walter received his first formal training in music theory, composition, and violin. His early success in composition led to a recording contract with Mechanische Musikalische Rechte in June 1931. During this period, Brenner established Edition Stella, a music publishing company operated from his Berlin residence, which aimed to support musicians facing increasing restrictions under the Nazi regime.

Like many Jewish musicians of the era, Brenner was targeted by anti-Semitic publications, including Herbert Gerigk's "Lexicon of Jews in Music" and Bruckner's 1938 "Judaism and Music." These publications were part of the Nazi regime's systematic effort to identify and exclude Jewish musicians from German cultural life.

In 1935, Brenner immigrated to the United States, settling initially in San Francisco where he studied composition with Dominico Brescia at Mills College in Oakland. After becoming a U.S. citizen, he moved to Hollywood in 1940, establishing himself as a music copyist for Warner Brothers and Disney studios.

His professional and personal life intertwined in 1941 when, during a reading of his orchestral composition "Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead," he met his future wife, Meta Rika Schiff, a local lyricist. That same year, several of his works were performed by the newly formed Beverly Hills Symphony Orchestra, a full-size ensemble of sixty musicians that featured compositions by its members.

Brenner's compositions included both secular and religious works, with particular attention to organ music for Jewish worship. Notable pieces include:

- "Processional for Organ"
- "Glory to God" (for organ with Hammond registration)
- "God Is Love"
- "Silent Prayer" (1963, dedicated to his father)
- "Harvest of Tears"
- "Gentle Shepherd"

Brenner died of a heart attack at the Hollywood Receiving Hospital on December 19, 1969. His musical papers were donated in the early 1970s by Meta Rika Brenner to the Dr. Kenneth J. LaBudde Department of Special Collections at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

The Walter Brenner Collection comprises three series: Manuscript Music Scores, Published Music Scores, and Miscellaneous Documents and Ephemera. The manuscript scores, dating from 1930-1967, form the core of the collection, with most works composed between 1941 and 1960. The collection provides insight into Brenner's compositional process through multiple drafts and revisions of works, particularly evident in pieces like "God Is Love," which exists in several arrangements.

Sources

Walter Brenner collection, University of Missouri-Kansas City Special Collections and Archives

Fetthauer, S. Walter Brenner on Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians of the Nazi Era, Universität Hamburg 2004 (accessed Jan 2025)

American Society of Music Arrangers Newsletter, January 1944