Born on September 27, 1909, in Hamm, Westphalia, as the son of a merchant, Arthur Schloßberg received musical training on piano, organ, and viola as a child and sang in various choirs. After finishing his secondary schooling in Mannheim, he studied Romance languages and literature, philosophy, and economics at the University of Heidelberg before turning to musicology, completing his doctorate in April of 1932 under Heinrich Besseler. On September 1, he took up a position as a répétiteur at the Hessian Landestheater Darmstadt, where he soon advanced to become assistant to General Music Director Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt.
Because Schloßberg was Jewish, the Nazis’ seizure of power brought his career in Germany to an end: uniformed SA members forced him to leave the theater during a performance, and his dismissal followed in March of 1933.
Schloßberg realized that he had no future in Germany and left the country in May of 1933. While his family fled to Palestine, he went to Paris, changed his name to Jean Berger, and acquired French citizenship in 1935. He remained musically active, working as a concert pianist, accompanist for singers, and choir director, and also began making a name for himself as a composer.
In May of 1939, Berger left France and emigrated to Brazil. There, he worked as an assistant conductor at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, taught at the local conservatory, and undertook concert tours throughout both American continents. After a concert tour of the United States, the musician planned to continue his career there. He moved to New York in 1941 but was drafted into the US Army the following year. There, he worked for the Office of War Information and composed for radio broadcasts as well as stage programs for the troops’ entertainment. He became a US citizen in 1943 and, in 1944, married the New York-born dancer and dance teacher Rita Holzer. The couple had one son.
After the war, Berger initially worked as a choir conductor for the broadcasters NBC and CBS but then turned to teaching and research as well as composition. Over the following decades, he taught at various colleges and universities, including Middlebury College in Vermont, the School of Music at the University of Illinois, and the College of Music at the University of Colorado. He also published writings on musicological subjects.
Berger’s greatest impact, however, was as a composer. Alongside numerous works in a variety of genres and for different instrumental combinations, choral music was at the center of his creative output. He composed several hundred choral works that became permanent fixtures in the repertoires of European and American choirs for many years to come and brought him international success and numerous honors. Jean Berger, born Arthur Schloßberg, died on May 28, 2002, in Aurora, Colorado.
1909 Hamm
2002 Aurora, Colorado