Marcel Tyberg was a musician of Polish Jewish origins (Tee-berg) born in Vienna on January 27, 1893, who was eliminated in the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz on December 31, 1944. 

Tyberg from Vienna to Opatija (Fiume)

Marcel Tyberg, who came from a family of musicians, studied music from a very young age and had the opportunity to frequent the virtuoso violinist Jan Kubelik in Vienna and to become friends with another violinist, later conductor of the Viennese orchestra, Rodolfo Lipizer. In 1916, the Tyberg family, in the midst of the world conflict, moved from Vienna to Abbazia, a splendid seaside resort a few kilometres from Fiume and known as the “pearl of the Gulf of Quarnero”. In Abbazia, Tyberg composed his first symphony in 1924 and in 1927 he met his musician friend Rodolfo Lipizer again, who had come to the renowned Quarnero resort after winning a competition to conduct the local orchestra. These were very important years of artistic and musical growth for Tyberg. In 1930, Lipizer went to Gorizia to found the symphony orchestra there, but Tyberg did not follow him for reasons that are still unclear. Tyberg, therefore, continued to give piano lessons, to play the organ in churches during solemn celebrations and in 1926 he created the "Unfinished" symphony for Schubert. For a certain period he took the artistic name of Till Bergmar composing pieces of popular music in vogue at the time: waltzes, tangos, and rumbas. Thanks to the competent care of his mother Wanda, Tyberg's scores are fortunately well written and usable. The weight of daily work combined with the time dedicated to writing new symphonies did not allow our musician any other space to adequately chisel his creative art on paper. The meticulous work of his mother Wanda, who was widowed in 1927, will prove invaluable in perpetuating the musical art of her son, whose life will be cut short by Nazi barbarity. In Abbazia Tyberg was well known and much appreciated by the citizens. He was a gentle and reserved person, who walked alone along the seashore and in the green parks of Opatija, in a coat that was perhaps a little too large for his slender figure. In 1930 his second symphony was awarded by Rafael Kubelik with the performance of the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Despite the international recognition he had achieved, Tyberg once again refused to publish his music. It was another missed opportunity to assert himself beyond the borders of Rijeka and Kvarner. Nevertheless, Tyberg enjoyed esteem and fame, so much so that he appeared in the city guides of Rijeka under the heading of musical artists.

 

September 1943 Nazis in Abbazia. The non-return from San Sabba to Auschwitz

During the Second World War Tyberg remained in Opatija. After September 8, 1943, Italy signed an unconditional armistice and this act paved the way for the German invasion of the Julian and Rijeka regions. In mid-October, the entire Julian March with Rijeka and Opatija was temporarily annexed to the German Reich (Adriatische Kustenlad) and thus subjected to the iron laws of the Nazis. Tyberg's mother, although acting in good faith, made a grave mistake at that time. When the Nazis required the mandatory registration of not only all Jewish citizens, but also those who had Jews among their ancestors, his mother Wanda naively wrote that her son Marcel's paternal grandfather, who had been deceased for years, had been Jewish. It was the beginning of the end. Although the Tybergs had long professed the Catholic faith, the family bond with his paternal ancestor made him a Jew to be persecuted and deported to Germany. His mother Wanda died at the end of 1943 and fortunately could not witness her son's arrest. The Gestapo, in fact, did not take long to knock on Tyberg's door, who had managed, a few days earlier, just in time to finish his third symphony and to save his musical scores by handing them over to his friend Milan Mihich. First deported to the San Sabba concentration camp, Tyberg was then sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where his death was registered on 31 December 1944.

Tyberg and the Mihich family. The saved scores.

Marcel Tyberg, as we have seen, was averse to seeking fame and success; therefore he never had a real interest in publishing and spreading his musical compositions. Among Tyberg's few students was the young Enrico Mihich (born in 1927), son of the well-known surgeon from Fiume Milan Mihich who had been living in Laurana for some time. Milan Mihich, after completing his medical studies in Vienna, had become over the years head of medicine at the Fiume Hospital and a professor at the University of Padua; not only that, but Dr. Milan had also managed to open a private clinic in Fiume for the treatment of oropharyngeal diseases and had also set up a clinic for the poor in Piazza Regina Elena. Dr. Mihich enjoyed a clear reputation, becoming at a certain point a surgeon to the Royal House and the Vatican and, due to his well-known skills, was called to perform delicate surgical operations in Zara, Rome and in various locations in Sicily and Calabria.

The Mihichs had settled in Laurana only in 1942 to escape the dangers of the air raids on Fiume. Milan Mihich became a friend of Tyberg over time and the two would occasionally meet in the cafés of Opatija to talk about art and music; they often played together privately. Milan Mihich played the piano very well and occasionally organised private concerts. Dr. Milan, convinced of the high educational value of music, at a certain point began to send his young son Enrico to Tyberg for piano and musical harmony lessons. After some time, the lessons began to be held in the Mihichs' beautiful villa in Laurana and left an indelible mark on the young Enrico. Undoubtedly, a special bond of esteem between Tyberg and the young Enrico blossomed in that period, so much so that it has spiritually endured over time. Shortly before his arrest by the Nazis, Tyberg managed to deliver a large part of his musical writings to his friend Milan Mihich, begging him to preserve them from destruction and/or dispersion. There was no chance of saving Tyberg. Doctor Mihich could barely, with great sadness and apprehension, say goodbye to his musician friend whom he never saw again.  

After the Second World War, the Mihichs went into exile

In early May 1945, Abbazia and Fiume were occupied by Yugoslavian troops and very difficult times began for the Italians of those cities and the surrounding area. Over 600 Italians from Fiume were eliminated during 1945 by the new communist regime and for another 38.000 Fiume residents the sad path of exodus opened. Milan Mihich and his wife Rosina moved to Italy, where he managed to continue his medical profession in some way. Unfortunately, in 1948 he died in Calabria, and was later buried in Nervi. Milan Mihich's wife was Rosina Lenaz, daughter of the great doctor and patriot from Fiume Lionello Lenaz, a fervent follower of D'Annunzio.

The Mihichs, although patriotic and pro-Italian, did not have sympathies for the fascist regime. Their son Enrico recalls that his grandfather Lionello did not agree with the racial theories and neither did his father Milan. Doctor Enrico recalls that his father called him Henry out of opposition to the pure language policy inaugurated under fascism. After his father Milan's death, the scores of maestro Tyberg were passed into the custody of his son Enrico. The family's economic problems obviously increased suddenly. His mother Rosina, to help her son with his studies, took a job on the liners of the "Cosulich" company that left from Genoa for the United States. This work activity of the mother was crucial for the future of her son Enrico, who was enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine in Milan and who still had three years to go before graduating. Visiting New York, his mother realized that her son Enrico, now a graduate, would be better able to assert himself in the United States. With the help of the Milanese doctor Prof. Trabucchi, Enrico managed to obtain two years of internship in New York. From that moment on his career was very successful, so much so that he was offered increasingly important positions. In 1957 he was hired at the Roswell Park Cancer Research Center in Buffalo. It is complex to describe his success in scientific research, suffice it to say that all the medical research centers in the world began to compete for him from Japan to the Soviet Union, from China to Australia. In 1984 Enrico Mihich was appointed by US President Ronald Reagan as a member of the National Cancer Research Council and then vice president of the American National Cancer Association, an organization with global influence.

Enrico Mihich did not forget maestro Tyberg. The great symphonic concert of 2015 in the presence of Obama.

Having achieved success and fame, Enrico Mihich did not disappoint his father Milan's recommendation not to forget the unfortunate maestro Tyberg. So in 2005 Enrico managed to get in touch with the conductor, JoAnn Falletta, of the Buffalo Philharmonic and interest her in Tyberg's music. The operation was successful and the first two symphonies of Tyberg were performed by the Buffalo Orchestra with great participation of the public and praise from the critics. The three symphonies were subsequently published in two elegant CD box sets.

The third symphony was then performed in 2015 in the presence of President Barack Obama in front and Croatian President Ivo Josipovic. Enrico Mihich returned, after 1998, to revisit Fiume, now Rijeka, and Abbazia several times. From that moment on, he tried to always maintain the connection with his origins and contact with the land of Fiume.

In 2015 he wrote me a last letter thanking me for the attention to his story, sending me some precious brochures. He promised to come and visit the Historical Archive Museum of Rijeka as soon as possible, unfortunately he passed away the following year. His memories and his great humanitarian example remain here, in the Rijeka archive.

In conclusion, I want to remind readers of this with the last sentence of that last letter addressed to me: " After the music is printed my task, inherited from my father Milan Mihich to whom Tyberg had entrusted the music, will be finished and I will give the originals to a music archive. Sorry for this long message. With many kind regards, Enrico Mihich. "

Marino Micich
Director Archive Historical Museum of Rijeka