Career Summary

Kabasta studied at the Vienna Academy for Music and Performing Art. After World War I he taught music at the Federal Institute of Education at Traiskirchen, subsequently taking up conducting positions in Wiener Neustadt and Baden bei Wien before in 1926 being appointed General Music Director in Graz as well as guest conductor with the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.

In 1931 he became director of Radio Vienna in combination with a teaching position in the conducting school of the Vienna Academy 1933‒35. In 1935 he became principal conductor of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and of the Vienna Symphony, and in 1938 General Music Director or the Munich Philharmonic. He committed suicide in 1946.

Kabasta and the Schenker Circle

Beginning in 1927, Schenker listened to radio broadcasts of several concerts conducted by Kabasta, neutrally, without either favorable or adverse comment.

Two of Schenker's pupils requested letters of recommendation from Schenker to Kabasta: Carl Bamberger and Manfred Willfort. On December 11, 1933, Willfort spoke "about Kabasta's high regard for" Schenker, and four days later Salzer and Willfort together spoke of Kabasta's "great admiration" for Schenker's work; and on January 14, 1934 Salzer again spoke of Kabasta's "enthusiasm" and intention to visit" Schenker. On March 23, 1934 Willfort admitted that he was already in his second year as a pupil of Kabasta. On December 12, 1933 Schenker reported in his diary that his nephew and pupil Georg Schenker had been "taken on by Kabasta" (in the Vienna Symphony).

There is no correspondence between Kabasta and Schenker in the Oswald Jonas or Ernst Oster Collections.