LA JOLLA, California — “Music of Refugee Composers” is the final program in the three-part Music of the Holocaust series. The recordings from the collection of the Astor Judaica Library will be played in the library at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center on Thursday, June 1, at 2 p.m.
I will be hosting this program, with the assistance of two distinguished guests, David Amos, conductor of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra (TICO) and conductor of over 30 highly acclaimed commercial recordings, and Carol Baird, founder of San Diego s Jewish Genealogical Society and grandniece of one of the refugee composers, Franz Waxman.
The five composers, whose music will be featured, all came to the United States to flee the Holocaust. Arnold Schoenberg and Eric Zeisl were born in Austria; Franz Waxman and Lukas Foss were born in Germany; and Ernest Bloch was born in Switzerland. We will listen to music which they wrote, inspired by their Jewish identity.
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was mostly self-taught, although he took some counterpoint lessons from the conductor, Alexander Zemlinsky, who later became his brother-in-law when Schoenberg married Zemlinsy’s younger sister, Mathilde. Schoenberg’s early works, such as his string sextet, “Transfigured Night,” were in the post-romantic style of the German-Austrian composers of the time. One of his main influences and supporters of his earlier efforts was Gustav Mahler.
Schoenberg first made his living orchestrating operettas. He later moved to Berlin to accept a teaching position. With the Nazi rise to power in 1933, the young Jewish composer was ousted from his job and fled to the United States the following year. He settled in Los Angeles. He was recognized as a revolutionary composer who developed a new direction in music, atonality, with the tone row, made up of the twelve half steps, organizing a new musical language, with no tonic center.
We will play one of his final works, “A Survivor of Warsaw,” for which he also wrote the English text. It depicts one of the Holocaust’s tragic episodes, the Nazis’ annihilation of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Eric Zeisl (1905-1959), although he achieved prominence as winner of the Austrian State Prize for his “Requiem Mass” in 1934, could not find a publisher because he was Jewish and his music was banned in Germany. After narrowly escaping capture during Kristallnacht, he moved to Paris, where he composed the incidental music to the dramatization of a novel, Hoib (Job) by Joseph Roth. That changed his musical life. Henceforth, he devoted his creative writing to Jewish music.
The following year, he arrived in the United States and settled in Los Angeles where he wrote for many movies, including “Lassie Come Home” and “The Postman Always Rings Twice.”
In 1944, he was commissioned to write a synagogue service. He had just found out that his beloved father had been interred in Terezin, then deported to Treblinka where he was murdered. This moved him to compose the “Requiem Ebraico,” for soloist, choir and orchestra. He chose the 92nd Psalm, a text of praise and consolation rather than of sadness. “With hearts full of tears, the Jews nevertheless hold on to God and do not cease to thank Him and do not cease to hope,” explained Zeisl.
This was the first major work of Holocaust commemoration and was played extensively, including by the Vienna Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic. His music is described as richly tonal with a modern sensibility. He succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 52, after teaching his night class at Los Angeles City College.
Franz Waxman (1906-1967) was born in what was then the Prussian Province of Selesia, now Poland. At 3, his eyes were doused with boiling water, which permanently impaired his vision. At 17, he entered the Dresden Music Academy, studying composition and conducting, while earning his keep playing in dance bands. He orchestrated scores for German films before escaping Germany to Paris after suffering a beating on the streets of Berlin.
In 1935, he arrived in the United States, settling in Los Angeles, where he was appointed head of music at Universal Studios. A year later, he left to become a composer at MGM studios where he wrote scores for Hitchcock movies. In 1943, he moved to Warner Brothers, working along other greats such as Max Steiner and Erich Korngold.
In 1947, he founded the Los Angeles Music Festival, of which he was the director and conductor. He did free-lancing for the studios, receiving academy awards for his scores for “Sunset Boulevard” and “A Place in the Sun.” He also scored television hits such as “Gunsmoke.”
“The Song of Terezin” was inspired by the poems written by children interred in that infamous ghetto. He composed this work in 1964-65 for mezzo-soprano soloist, mixed chorus, children’s chorus and orchestra. This was Waxman’s last opus before his death from cancer at age 61.
Lukas Foss (1922-2009), born in Berlin, was a child prodigy. He published his first work at the age of 15 and was the youngest to win a Guggenheim Fellowship.
In 1933, his family moved to Paris, following Hitler s rise to power. Four years later, they moved to the United States, where Foss continued his studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, piano with Isabelle Vengerova, conducting with Fritz Reiner and composition with Randall Thompson. He later studied composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale and conducted with Serge Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood. He served as pianist of the Boston Symphony from 1943 to 1950. During his tenure teaching at UCLA, he founded the Improvisational Chamber Ensemble, served as director of the Ojai Festival and conducted 12 concerts at the Hollywood Bowl.
In 1963, he moved to Buffalo, N.Y., to become the Director of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo. While there, he conducted the Buffalo Philharmonic. From 1971-79, he conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonic, during which time he was also the Music Director of the Jerusalem Philharmonic. From 1981-86, he was at the helm of the Milwaukee Symphony.
He is noted for his eclectic style, drawing influences from many sources and pioneering improvisational techniques. While in Jerusalem, he saw what is probably the oldest fragments of musically notated prayer texts, believed to date from the 12th Century Inspired by those fragments, he composed “Lammdeni” for choir. He continued to guest lecture at universities and guest conduct throughout the world until his death in New York City in 2009.
Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was born in Geneva, Switzerland and studied violin in Brussels with the Rumanian-born violinist, Eugene Ysaye. After studies in Frankfurt, Munich and Paris, he returned to Geneva, married and entered his father’s watch-making business. He also lectured at the Geneva Conservatory and his opera, “Macbeth,” premiered in Paris. It was during World War I that he wrote his first Jewish-related work, “Three Jewish Poems.” It was followed by the “Israel Symphony” and “Schelomo—Hebrew Rhapsody” for cello and orchestra, probably his most famous composition.
In 1916, he began a tour of the United States as music director of a dance troupe. When the tour was curtailed, he found work teaching at the Mannes School of Music in NYC. In 1920, he was appointed first director of the Cleveland Conservatory and five years later, he held a similar post with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. While in San Francisco, he was commissioned to compose a Sacred Service by Temple Emanu-El. The stipend allowed him to return to Europe where he remained from 1930-38. He returned to the United States when he realized the Nazi Holocaust looming over Europe. He served as a Professor of Music at Berkeley from 1040-1952 and spent his last years residing in Agate Beach, Oregon, where he not only composed but enjoyed his hobbies of photography and polishing agates. One of his final works was “Suite Hebraique” for Viola and Orchestra. We will listen to a recording conducted by my guest, David Amos.
To conclude the program of refugee composers, we will play the last movement of Eric Zeisl’s “Brandeis Sonata,” inspired by his scholar-in-residency at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley and performed by my sister, Violinist Zina Schiff and pianist Cameron Grant.
This program is presented by the Astor Judaica Library and the Senior Department of the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, Melanie Rubin, Senior/Adult Director, Alyssa Micklos, Senior/Adult Program Coordinator. It is co-sponsored by We Are the Tree of Life, Jacqueline Simha Gmach, founder and director.