Tune in every day at 1 PM to hear a complete work by a different composer lost in the Holocaust as we commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday.

For many Jewish composers, the rise of Nazism in Germany and Austria resulted in a stark choice: stay and submit to an unknown future in an increasingly hostile environment, or leave for foreign lands, cut off from one’s cultural heritage.

In the early days of Nazism, when the choice was still not an obvious one, it was far from an easy decision. Shortly after Hitler seized power, Kurt Weill (a prominent composer of the Weimar Republic) noted: 'I consider what is going on here so sickening that I cannot imagine it lasting more than a couple of months … But one could be very wrong.'

Once the Nazis had passed laws ‘cleansing’ Germany’s cultural life of Jews, composers were forced for financial reasons, irrespective of their feelings of foreboding, to consider exile: they could not join the newly-created Reich Music Chamber, and while the rules in the first few years of Hitler’s regime were not rigorously enforced, royalties from compositions soon dried up.

For those that did not leave when the had the chance, their fate was sealed.

We begin the week with Erwin Schulhoff.  The Czechoslovakian composer and pianist was one of the figures in the generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany and whose works have been rarely noted or performed.  He studied piano with Debussy for a short spell. He was even awarded the Mendelssohn Prize in 1913 for his piano achievements and won the same prize as a composer some years following WWI. He was sent to Theresienstadt in 1941 and then died of tubercolosis in the Wülzburg concentration camp in August, 1942.

 

 

 

Schulhoff was one of the first generation of classical composers to find inspiration in the rhythms of jazz music.[4] Schulhoff also embraced the avant-garde influence of Dadaism in his performances and compositions after World War I. When organizing concerts of avant-garde music in 1919, he included this manifesto:

Absolute art is revolution, it requires additional facets for development, leads to overthrow (coups) in order to open new paths...and is the most powerful in music.... The idea of revolution in art has evolved for decades, under whatever sun the creators live, in that for them art is the commonality of man. This is particularly true in music, because this art form is the liveliest, and as a result reflects the revolution most strongly and deeply–the complete escape from imperialistic tonality and rhythm, the climb to an ecstatic change for the better.

 

We then move on to Silesia-born Austrian composer Viktor Ullman. He was also a conductor and pianist.

 

                                                   

On September 8, 1942 Ullman was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Up to his deportation his list of works had reached 41 opus numbers and contained an additional three piano sonatas, song cycles on texts by various poets, operas, and the piano concerto Op. 25, which he finished in December 1939, nine months after the entry of German troops into Prague. Most of these works are missing. The manuscripts presumably disappeared during the occupation. Thirteen printed items, which Ullmann published privately and entrusted to a friend for safekeeping, have survived.

The particular nature of the camp at Theresienstadt enabled Ullmann to remain active musically: he was a piano accompanist, organized concerts ("Collegium musicum", "Studio for New Music"), wrote critiques of musical events, and composed, as part of a cultural circle including Karel Ančerl, Rafael Schachter, Gideon Klein, Hans Krása, and other prominent musicians imprisoned there. He wrote: "By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon. Our endeavor with respect to arts was commensurate with our will to live."

On October 16, 1944 he was deported to the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where on October 18, 1944 he was killed in the gas chambers.

When Ullmann was deported to Auschwitz, he left his works in the safekeeping of his friend Emil Utitz. After the war, Utitz gave them to H. G. Adler in Theresienstadt in 1945, and Adler brought the scores to England in 1947.

 

On Wednesday Intermezzo host Chris Wolf, will feature a work by a Czech composer Pavel Haas. He was an exponent of Leoš Janáček's school of composition, and also utilized elements of folk music and jazz. Although his output was not large, he is notable particularly for his song cycles and string quartets.

Haas was born in Brno, into a Jewish family. His father, Zikmund, a shoemaker by trade, was from the Moravian region, while his mother, Olga (née Epstein), was born in Odessa. After studying piano privately, Haas began his more formal musical education at the age of 14 and he studied composition at the Brno Conservatory from 1919 to 1921 under Jan Kunc and Vilém Petrželka. This was followed by two years of study in the master class of the noted Czech composer Leoš Janáček. Janáček was far and away Haas's most influential teacher, and Haas, in turn, proved to be Janáček's best student. In 1935 he married Soňa Jakobson, the former wife of Russian linguist Roman Jakobson.

In 1941, Haas was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp (Terezín). He was one of several Czech-Jewish composers there, including Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein and Hans Krása. Prior to his arrest, he had officially divorced his wife Soňa in order that she and their young daughter would not suffer a similar fate. On his arrival, he became very depressed and had to be coaxed into composition by Gideon Klein. Haas wrote at least eight compositions in the camp, only a few of which have survived. They include a set of Four Songs on Chinese Poetry for baritone and piano, a work for men's choir titled "Al s'fod" (his first and only work in Hebrew), and the Study for String Orchestra which was premiered in Theresienstadt under the Czech conductor Karel Ančerl and is probably Haas's best-known work today. The orchestral parts were found by Ančerl after the liberation of Theresienstadt and the score was reconstructed.

 

                                                                                                                            

In 1944 the Nazis remodeled Theresienstadt just before a visit from the Red Cross, and a propaganda film, Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt (The Führer Gives the Jews a City), was made by director Kurt Gerron, under the coercion of the camp commandant, Karl Rahm. In the film, Theresienstadt, children are seen singing Hans Krása's opera, Brundibár, and Haas can be seen taking a bow after a performance, conducted by Karel Ančerl, of his Study for Strings. When the propaganda project was over, the Nazis transferred 18,000 prisoners, including Haas and the children who had sung in Brundibár, to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were murdered in the gas chambers. According to the testimony of Karel Ančerl, Haas stood next to him after their arrival at Auschwitz. Doctor Mengele was about to send Ančerl to the gas chamber first, but the weakened Haas began to cough, so the death sentence was therefore chosen for him, instead. After the war Ančerl met with Haas's brother Hugo and told him the story.

 

On Thursday we pay tribute to Hans Krása. Born in 1899, played an active role in Prague's multi–ethnic musical life between the wars. During WWII, Krása was deported to the Terezín concentration camp, where a remarkable musical community flourished among its Jewish prisoners.

Krása's two–act children's opera Brundibár [The Bumble–Bee], a setting of an Adolf Hoffmeister libretto, was composed in 1938 as a submission to a children's opera competition sponsored by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Education. But no winner was announced nor any prize money awarded, undoubtedly due to the complete occupation of the country by Nazi Germany in March, 1939. In July 1941, rehearsals of the opera began under the conductor Rafael Schächter at Prague's Jewish–Zionist orphanage HaGibor. The opera was performed twice in secret, as Jewish cultural activities were already forbidden by that time. Krása was arrested before hearing the work and deported to Terezín one year later. Several of his collaborators and the child actors involved in the HaGibor production followed shortly thereafter.

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

At Terezín, Krása became the head of musical activities of the camp's so–called Freizeitgestaltung (“leisure time activities”), established by the Nazis once they realized the propaganda value of cultural activity at their “model” concentration camp. The camp's precarious conditions and the need for distraction drove musicians to high levels of creativity, forming one of the most vibrant musical schools in occupied Europe. Among them were Karel Reiner, Karel Ančerl, Pavel Haas, Viktor Ullmann, and Gideon Klein. During his 26–month internment, Krása composed his String Trio and the Three Songs for Soprano, Clarinet, Viola and Cello, both frequently performed.

Rudolf Freudenfeld, the son of HaGibor's director, smuggled the piano reduction of Brundibár into the fortress ghetto. After Krása re–orchestrated the work for the available forces, rehearsals began at the so–called Dresden barracks. Constantly interrupting rehearsals were the deportation of the child actors to concentration camps in the east, who were replaced by newly arriving children. After more than two months of rehearsals, the Terezín premiere of Brundibár took place at the Magdeburg barracks on 23 September 1943. On average, the opera was performed once a week until autumn of 1944, by which time the final transports had left the fortress.

Although Krása had conceived the opera before there was any immediate danger to Jews of Czechoslovak nationality, the Terezín production could be easily interpreted allegorically, with the evil Brundibár representing Hitler. The surreptitious communication of ideas was helped by the fact that the text, sung in Czech, could not be understood by the SS–guards. The story concerns the siblings Aninka and Pepíček, whose widowed mother is sick and for whom they must acquire milk. The penniless children see that the organ–grinder Brundibár earns money with his singing and playing. The children attempt to join in with a song, and Brundibár chases them away, leading them to desperation. Coming to their aid are the animals who call together the neighborhood children to sing a lullaby. The delighted listeners give money to the siblings, which Brundibár then tries to steal. In the end, Brundibár is overcome by the children and animals, who sing, “Brundibár is beaten, he runs into the distance, strike up the drum, the war has been won.”

On June 23 1944, the Terezín ghetto was selected by the Nazis for the visit of an International Red Cross commission, who came in response to the growing concerns internationally over the treatment of Jews. For the visit, the production of Brundibár was hastily moved to the large Sokol Hall outside the ghetto, where the stage designer František Zelenka was given materials for the improvement of the set and costumes. The embellishment of the production took place overnight. The opera's final scene was later captured in the Nazi propaganda film Theresienstadt, more well known under the deceptive title Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt [The Führer Gives the Jews a City]. Ironically, the scene included in the film was where Brundibár is defeated; the film never made it to the German screens during the war.

 On October 10, Krasa was transported to Auschwitz and perished two days later.

 

We end the week with Hungarian composer László Weiner.

With the possible exception of Lajthai-Lazarus, László was the youngest of the seven Hungarian Jewish composers who perished in the Holocaust.

He was a pupil of Kodály for some six years from 1934 and by all acounts one of his favourite. In fact Kodály tried in vain to save Weiner from the labour camps at Lukov. Kodály attempted to find a position for the Jewish musician in Melbourne, Australia. In 1943, he again made an effort on Weiner's behalf:

To The Major General   

    
12th July 1943, Budapest


Dear Sir,


Please allow me to draw your attention to my ex-student László Weiner. He is expected to become an outstanding composer and pianist. Two years ago a composition of his won the national competition. Weiner already spent 13 months in forced labor, partly with heavy manual work. I believe that the continuation of such work will put his future at risk: he will be unable to carry out the cultural work for which he studied and obtained qualifications. I would appreciate it if, circumstances allowing, future work assignments would take into consideration Weiner's profession and individual abilities so that his future should not be jeopardized. I am sure that, as far as possible, we can rely on your good will.


With much appreciation,


Yours very sincerely: Zoltán Kodály

Endre Gaál, music critic for the important daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet (Hungarian Nation), attended two of Weiner's premieres – both in 1942 – and reported favorably on them.

Weiner dedicated most of his compositions to his wife, the excellent singer Vera Rózsa. They had met as students at the Music Academy, married in 1942 and continued to make music together at OMIKE's concerts whenever they had the chance. OMIKE gave as many opportunities as possible to Jewish artists, but the fact that the young Weiner had to be accommodated alongside well-known mature artists limited his opportunities. He conducted, accompanied and taught – and had some of his works performed – there from 1941 until December 7, 1942. He was scheduled to conduct a Beethoven evening in February 1943, but by then he was in a forced labor camp. He was 25 or 26 when he composed his last works and 28 when he was murdered at the Lukov forced labor camp on July 25, 1944.

 

                                                                                             

 

Vera Rózsa survived the Holocaust and became a well-known singing teacher in England. She taught at The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and privately.

Molnár writes: “In spite of his youth, Weiner developed a musical style that would have been unimaginable without Kodály, but Weiner was no epigone. His ideas were melodic, well formed and rich in harmonies.”

On May 2, 1994, fifty years after he was killed, a memorial concert was arranged for Weiner in the Goldmark Hall, which was the OMIKE concert venue. The concert included four of Weiner's compositions, and the performers – including cellist Janos Starker – had personal links to László Weiner. Thanks mostly to the violist Pál Lukács, Weiner's Violin and Viola duo, Viola Sonata and Triple Concerto were published by Editio Musica in 1958, 1961 and 1965, respectively; the Three Songs in 1994; the Overture in 1995; and the four-part chorus in 2001. Yet his works are still little known, and he is often confused with the much older Leó Weiner.

 

Source: http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/resistance-and-exile/composers-in-exile/

               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Ullmann

               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Haas

              http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/composers/article/hans_krasa/

              http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/Sept09/Weiner_hcd32607.htm

              http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/journal/journalArticle/remembering_seven_murdered_hungarian_jewish_composers/