An exceptional biography about an exceptional young Czech composer. Gideon Klein was much more than the tragic young man murdered before his prime as David Fligg’s excellent biography explains.
Despite Covid, the work of the Exilarte Centre carries on – a report on what’s been happening over the past year
This follows parts 1 and 2 in dealing with the crisis of Jewish identity by exile composers. In part 3, we take a case study of two composers as they set “The Song of Solomon”, known by one composer as “Song of Songs” and by the other as “Das Hohelied”.
In an article in the Los Angeles Times from October 2 1938,Rabbi Jacob Sonderling describes his meeting with Ernst Toch, Boris Morros, the actor Leopold Jessner and the story behind Toch’s setting of the Haggadah in his Cantata of the Bitter Herbs op. 65. Before this, however, Sonderling relates his desire to renew the music of the liturgy in a story that resonates with the idea of the prodigal son:
How and in what manner did secular composers thrown out of Europe after 1933 for being Jewish express Jewish identity in music?
The composer, former music critic and teacher, Walter Arlen is 100 years old and like any centenarian, he has many stories to tell. Unlike many centenarians, he has lived through more than a… Continue reading
A review of Eva Rieger’s excellent biography of the Wagnerian soprano Frida Leider
By allowing research to re-create the biotope of past creativity, we can increase understanding and appreciation of unfamiliar repertoire among artists and audiences.
Since posting this article six years ago, the discovery of Hans Gál has carried on at such a pace, that an update is required, demanding a broader focus than his opera Die heilige… Continue reading
Politics and the arts – what might it mean for the next decade?
This is a paper I was invited to give in Brussles earlier this month as part of a conference organised by “Forum Voix Etouffées” The destruction of Habsburg Austria would result in an… Continue reading
