Friedrich Wildgans

Wildgans supported the conservative resistance group Austrian Freedom Movement [de] around Roman Karl Scholz, was therefore arrested by the Gestapo on 25 October 1940 and remained in pre-trial detention until 24 February 1942.

After his release from prison, he found no professional employment in the public service until the end of the war[2] and temporarily sought his livelihood as an assistant accountant.

[3] After the liberation of Vienna in April 1945, he worked as a teacher at the Austrian Academy of Music, which he had to leave again at the beginning of the 1946/47 academic year.

Since its re-establishment in April 1945 he was executive vice-president and from 1948 to 1961 president of the Austrian Section of the International Society for New Music [de].

The premiere of his Eucharistic Hymns at the Vienna Konzerthaus on 14 June 1954 provoked one of the last great Austrian concert scandals, triggered by the outrage over this "popular cantata", which some found inappropriate, combining sacred texts with syncopated rhythms.