Gustav Klimt’s golden era in Vienna combines resonant images from Liszt, Mahler and Richard Strauss. The young woman from his expectation – is she the mysterious beauty that Arnold Schönberg describes in his early opus? And the Garden of Eden from the Tree of Life – is that the place where Elisabeth from Walter Brich’s Hesse setting has already been?
The atmospheric figures from Gustav Klimt’s works that adorn the new Tree of Life wing are the starting point for a journey through the ups and downs of love – the path through paradise!
The soprano Arabella Fenyves and the pianist David Hausknecht interpret the still unknown musical treasures of the exiled composer Walter Bricht, returning them to the Viennese art song repertoire.
Friday, April 5th, 2024, 7 p.m. Bösendorfer Salon Bösendorferstraße 12 | Canovagasse 4, 1010 Vienna
Dance band arrangements by members of the Auschwitz Men’s Orchestra played by musicians from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater & Dance under the baton of Oriol Sans.
Monday, May 13, 2024, 8 p.m. Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna Dorotheergasse 11 1010 Vienna
The ten short pieces on this program were arranged by Polish political prisoners who were members of the Auschwitz Orchestra. They used popular German hits of the 1930s and 40s – tangos, waltzes and foxtrots arranged and orchestrated for a dance band that played Sunday concerts for the Auschwitz garrison near the villa of Commandant Höss. The resulting manuscripts, which I began researching in May 2016, are stored in the collections department of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Occasionally the prisoners signed these manuscripts with their prisoner number, e.g. B. Antoni Gargul, a viola player and Polish soldier (5665), or Maksymilian Piłat (5131), a bassoonist with a conservatory diploma who played in the orchestra of the State Opera and the Baltic Philharmonic in Gdansk after the war.
In the musical realization of these manuscripts for tonight’s performance, we retained the original instrumentation as much as possible and made only very small changes in the event of obvious errors. You hear these works, silent for over 70 years, as close as possible to how they sounded in 1942 or ’43 when they were performed at Auschwitz 1. The lines spoken by our singers are taken from testimonies and interviews with members of the Auschwitz Orchestra conducted in the post-war period.
We would like to thank the Copernicus Institute, the Exilarte Center, Dean David Gier, the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater & Dance, and the Global Tour Fund of the School of Music, Theater & Dance for making this concert possible.
Patricia Hall, 2020
Artists:
Oriol Sans, conductor
Musicians from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater & Dance
On the occasion of the anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, the Austrian Parliament will remember the victims of National Socialism on Friday, May 3, 2024. The event will be accompanied by music from the Exilarte Center and broadcast live on ORF 2.
Friday, May 3, 2024; 11:00 a.m. Parliament Austria – Federal Assembly Hall Dr.-Karl-Renner-Ring 3 A-1017 Vienna
Opening words:
Wolfgang Sobotka, President of the National Council
Musical program:
Walter Arlen (1920-2023): Sonnet for violin and piano
Walter Bricht (1904-1970): Intermezzo from Four Pieces for piano, for the left hand (1933)
Wilhelm Grosz (1894-1939): Eastern Jewish folk songs for a singing voice and piano
Artists:
Aleksandra Dimić, vocals Karla Križ, violin Anastasija Richter, piano
The young woodwind quintet Windobona was founded in the summer of 2020 during the Angelika Prokopp Summer Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic. Most members study at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and receive chamber music lessons from Gottfried Pokorny. They are active both nationally and internationally in chamber music and renowned orchestras, which contributes to valuable experience that they now use in the quintet. The ensemble regularly gives concerts throughout Austria, creates its own programs, performs at various events, works on commissioned compositions and plays at prestigious music festivals such as the Carinthian Summer. In 2022 they won 1st prize at the 4th International Cibulka Competition in Graz.
Monday, March 18, 2024, 7 p.m. Palais Ehrbar – small Ehrbar Saal Mühlgasse 28 1040 Vienna
Pianist Linda Leine and soprano Pia Davila have been working together steadily since fall 2014. This exciting journey began with the 2015 “Schubert and Modernism” competition in Graz, where the duo received third prize. Since then it has been playing throughout Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In Schwerin in 2016, the musicians won first prize in the Ostracized Music Competition – for both of them the beginning of working with music by ostracized composers. Since then, Linda Leine and Pia Davila have developed a wide repertoire, the core pieces of which can now be heard on the CD. There are various reasons why the musicians devote themselves particularly to this topic. In addition to the fantastic musical quality that the often unknown works and texts have, it is important to the two artists to make a social contribution through their profession. While Linda Leine learned the stories of her own Jewish family on her father’s side – her grandfather was interned in several German concentration camps and survived the Holocaust – for Pia Davila, cultivating memory for a democratic and peaceful life in the future is an important concern. For many years she was a member of the “Freundeskreis KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme e.V.” and her work as part of the guest student program for refugees at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater was honored with an invitation to the 2019 New Year’s reception with the Federal President at Bellevue Palace.
Tuesday, April 16, 2024, 7 p.m. Palais Ehrbar – small Ehrbar Saal Mühlgasse 28 1040 Vienna
“… my life only took on content when I began to seriously concentrate on music […] – I was completely on my own…” (Hugo Kauder)
The concert will feature music for string orchestra by Eric Zeisl, Hugo Kauder, Julius Bürger, Mieczysław Weinberg and Gideon Klein. You can also enjoy lively music from Fritz Kreisler and Anita Bild. Never-before-heard archive treasures await you.
The Alma Mahler Philharmonic stands up for composers who have been unjustly forgotten. Part of their commitment is the (re)discovery of the music of exiled composers, especially those who were expelled from Germany and Austria during National Socialism and whose music was banned.
The Alma Mahler Philharmonic is a non-profit chamber orchestra consisting of more than 30 young musical talents. The program will be conducted by Clara Bauer Wagsteiner, a graduate of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. The pianist and musicologist Karin Wagner will guide you through the evening with background information and exciting details.
Inspired by Arnold Schönberg’s 150th birthday, celebrated around the world, the new exhibition at the mdw’s Exilarte Center sheds light on the social and cultural environment of the founder of the Second Viennese School. In particular, attention is paid to Alexander Zemlinsky, who taught Schönberg and introduced him to the Viennese music circles, and to Richard Hoffmann, who was a pupil of Schönberg and later became his assistant.
These three personalities, their professional, friendly and musical connections as well as their fates during the time of the Nazi regime are brought closer using life documents, photos and music manuscripts.
Countless other free spirits of the early 20th century from music, literature, fine arts and architecture as well as wealthy art lovers and patrons met for artistic exchange and lavish festivals in the artists’ colony planned by Josef Hoffmann in what was already the posh 19th district of Vienna. Most of them had Jewish roots and were persecuted by the Nazis. Many were able to emigrate, many died in the concentration camps.
Dazzling personalities such as Alma Mahler-Werfel, Gustav Mahler, Carl Moll, Koloman Moser, Hugo Henneberg, Sigmund Freud, Egon and Emmy Wellesz, Emil and Yella Hertzka, Richard Gerstl, Adolf Loos and Arnold Schönberg inspired one another in this Art Nouveau villa colony, which will be recreated as a model for the exhibition.
(c) Maria Noisternig
(c) Maria Noisternig
(c) Maria Noisternig
(c) Maria Noisternig
(c) Maria Noisternig
(c) Maria Noisternig
(c) Maria Noisternig
Arnold Schönberg was one of the first to emigrate in 1933, Richard Hoffmann in 1935 and Alexander Zemlinksy after the “Anschluss” in 1938… How much does the forced exile change a person, an artist in his work? In the exhibition we take a look at the respective oeuvre before and after fleeing into an uncertain future.
The score for one of Arnold Schönberg’s best-known works, A Survivor from Warsaw, written in the USA in 1947, is contextualised in the exhibition. Alexander Zemlinsky, who had previously written large symphonic works, has almost fallen silent as a result of the persecution: on display are the two song collections that he created in New York from 1938 (op. 27) and 1940 (without op.).
The question of what life in Europe would have been like for millions of people affected without Hitler’s National Socialist racial doctrine can no longer be answered and the loss of artistic potential in Europe as a result cannot be measured. We show the arbitrary bureaucracy with which Jews and people critical of the system were harassed. Documents such as Zemlinsky’s Reich Flight Tax Notice and Alien Registration Receipt Card with fingerprint can be seen in the original.
Zemlinsky and Schönberg managed to escape to the USA by transatlantic steamship, Richard Hoffmann emigrated to New Zealand. Other flight fates, paths to places of exile for women, men and children are reconstructed in the exhibition.
Many composers and musicians from the society around Zemlinsky, Schönberg and Hoffmann did not succeed in finding freedom. They lived underground (e.g. Josef Polnauer, Olga Novakovic and others) or were murdered by the Nazis (e.g. Schönberg’s family members or Schönberg’s friend and publisher Henri Hinrichsen).
“Triangle of the Viennese Tradition” is the title of the connection between three musicians who shared a similar fate as composers, educators and friends: they were of Jewish origin and therefore outcasts and exiles.
In Romanticism, the wanderer is a symbol of loneliness, the searching outsider and restlessness. Schubert took up this theme in numerous songs, and it also inspired him in his Wanderer Fantasy.
Hans Winterberg was also an outsider and preoccupied with his identity throughout his life, and it is only now, decades after his death, that he is being discovered as an important composer: born into a Jewish family, becoming a Czech citizen, married to a Catholic woman, in Theresienstadt Interned, emigrated to Germany and honored as a Sudeten German, his work has only recently become accessible. We will premiere his Fourth Piano Concerto and discuss its fascinating history in detail in a panel discussion before the concert.
Perhaps Beethoven’s most famous work, his Fifth Symphony, whose main motif is commonly associated with fate, is an ideal complement, leading from Dunkel to a hard-won victory.
An event by the Joseph Hellmesberger Institute for String Instruments, Guitar and Harp in Music Education (designated as Alma Rosé Institute for String Instruments, Guitar and Harp in Music Education) under the overall direction of Bettina Schmitt in cooperation with Exilarte. Center for Persecuted Music and the Institute for Music and Movement Pedagogy/Rhythmics and Music Physiology.
Funded by the Gender|Queer|Diversity Call 2022 of the Gender_mdw platform
Friday, January 26, 2024; 6:30 p.m. Joseph Haydn – Hall mdw-Campus Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Vienna
On the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a concert with discussion will take place on the evening before, January 26, 2024 under the title “Erased!? Rediscovery of persecuted female composers during the time of the Nazi regime”. The concert will feature chamber music works by the Nazi regime. Composers Leni Alexander, Anita Bild, Henriette Bosmans, Ursula Mamlok, Ruth Schönthal, Germaine Tailleferre, Vally Weigl, Rosalie Marie Wertheim, who were expelled from the regime, were performed and were selected and rehearsed by project leader, violinist and conductor Bettina Schmitt. At the same time, rhythmic students interpret and movement pedagogy some of these works. In a conversation with the flautist and exile researcher Dr. Ulrike Anton, conducted by colleagues from exilarte, we talk about these rarely performed composers and their artistic work.
In conversation:
Dr. Ulrike Anton, Director of the Arnold Schoenberg Center Vienna Katja Kaiser, Exilarte Center of the mdw
We are pleased to receive the book “Music of Exile – The Untold Story of Composers Who Fled Hitler” (Yale University Press, 2023) by the renowned author and researcher of “exiled music” Dr. Benjamin Michael Haas to Vienna after a successful presentation in London.
Thursday, 11 January 2024, 6:30 pm Jewish Museum Vienna Dorotheergasse 11 1010Vienna
About the Book: What happens to a composer when persecution and exile means their true music no longer has an audience? In the 1930s, composers and musicians began to flee Hitler’s Germany to make new lives across the globe. The process of exile was complex: although some of their works were celebrated, these composers had lost their familiar cultures and were forced to navigate xenophobia as well as entirely different creative terrain. Others, far less fortunate, were in a kind of internal exile—composing under a ruthless dictatorship or in concentration camps and ghettos.
Michael Haas sensitively records the experiences of this musical diaspora. Torn between cultures and traditions, these composers produced music that synthesized old and new worlds, some becoming core portions of today’s repertoire, some relegated to the desk drawer. Encompassing the musicians interned as enemy aliens in the United Kingdom, the brilliant Hollywood compositions of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and the Brecht-inspired theater music of Kurt Weill, Haas shows how these musicians shaped the twentieth-century soundscape—and offers a moving record of the incalculable effects of war on culture.
About Autor: Benjamin Michael Haas, PhD was for many years a recording producer with Decca and Sony. 1994/5 he was appointed Vice President of Sony Classical in NY. He has won a number of Grammys, initiated and led Decca’s recording series “Entartete Musik”. From 2002 – 2010, he worked as Music Curator at Vienna’s Jewish Museum. From 2000 – 2015 he was director at London University’s Jewish Music Institute and in 2015/16, he was a Research Associate at the University College London’s School of Jewish and Hebrew Studies. Since 2016 he has acted as Senior Researcher at mdw’s Exilarte Center, which he co-founded.
