Lecture Recitals: "Persecution and Re-Discovery"
musica reanimata's series of lecture recitals began with a concert for the centenary of the jewish composer Darius Milhaud, who had suffered persecution after German troops had occupied France. The concert took place in a church in Berlin in August 1992. At this occasion Dr. Wim de Vries (Amsterdam), expert on Milhaud, the musicologist Dr. Dieter Krickeberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg) and Dr. Albrecht Duemling met for the first time. Through their co-operation, it was possible to rediscover some manuscripts by Milhaud, which had been confiscated by the Nazis, and to return them to the composer's widow. This lecture recital gave the series of concerts its title "Persecution and Re-discovery". It was realized in collaboration with the Institut Francais, and recorded and broadcast by RIAS Berlin.
Since September 1993, there take place five concerts per annum in the "Musikclub" of Konzerthaus Berlin
[www.konzerthaus.de]. In the beginning, the concerts were recorded by the broadcast stations RIAS Berlin and DS Kultur, nowadays by Deutschlandfunk.
In the first years, the composers Viktor Ullmann, Hans Krása, Pavel Haas and Gideon Klein, who were imprisoned in Theresienstadt (Terezín) and murdered in Auschwitz, took the central place in the society's activities, together with Erwin Schulhoff, who, like them, had been deported from Prague and died in an internment camp.
Besides, a growing interest has been turned towards other composers who have either been killed in concentration camps or saved their lives through exile or hiding, but lost their spiritual home. An example is Berthold Goldschmidt (1903-1996), who, after emigrating to England, never again reached a success like before in Germany (until 1933). Disappointed about this neglect he gave up composing in 1958, starting again only in 1982, when he got encouraged and inspired by some young performers.
Within 25 years the society musica reanimata has realized more than 100 lecture concerts, usually featuring one composer in selected pieces of music and reports about his life and work. If possible, contemporary witnesses took part, e.g. survivors from concentration camps, the composer's friends or relatives. Some of the persecuted artists who had left Germany as adolescents visited Berlin to tell their fate themselves, for example Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, Ursula Mamlok, Alfred Goodman, Tzvi Avni, George Dreyfus, Samuel Adler and Joseph Horovitz.
Upcoming lecture concerts: [Preview »]
List of previous concerts: [Review »]
musica reanimata cooperates with Konzerthaus Berlin and Deutschlandfunk.
