Hans Krása (1899–1944) 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.  On 16 October 1944 he was transported to Auschwitz and perished two days later.  Krása will perhaps best be remembered for his children’s opera Brundibár, performed in Terezín 55 times.  The production of this opera, about children triumphant, in a place where the vast majority of children clearly were not, encapsulated the combination of absurdity, moral triumph and horror associated with this time and place.

Early Years

Krása came from a well–situated family that encouraged his early musical affinity.  His father was a Czech lawyer and his mother a German Jew.  Several of his teenage compositions were performanced by paid musicians at the spas the family visited in his youth.

His primary training in composition was at Prague’s German Music Academy under Alexander Zemlinsky.  Krása’s early aesthetic ideals were guided by Prague’s cultural milieu, where, before 1918, the cult of Mahler played an especially important role.  Vítĕzslav Novák, sometimes considered the Czech exponent of impressionism, was also a strong force. Krása’s works from what can be called his first creative period resulted from these influences.  The sudden arrival in Prague of post–World War I modernisms can also be found, in particular Stravinsky and Les Six, but only in passing.

His graduation project, Four Orchestral Songs, settings of Christian Morgenstern’s Songs from the Gallows, was performed in Prague under Zemlinsky in May 1921. German critics appraised the work highly, and found his style characterized by aspects of the musical grotesque.  But in terms of his anti–Romantic stance, as found in his satire of Romantic musical clichés, Krása did not assume the kind of militancy of Hindemith or certain members of Les Six.  Instead, the grotesque and the aphoristic nature of certain works from this time show his indebtedness to Mahler.  Apart from his Four Orchestral Songs, Krása’s first creative period also includes the String Quartet, Op. 2, the Symphony for Small Orchestra, and the Five Songs for Voice and Piano, Op. 4.

Krása stopped composing for seven years after completing his Five Songs, a period filled in part by work as a répétiteur at Prague’s New German Theater and occasional trips abroad.  He followed Zemlinsky to the Berlin Kroll Opera in 1927.  Although the support of Zemlinsky brought him conducting offers in Berlin, Paris, and Chicago, he could not bring himself to accept a foreign post and returned to Prague, where he had enjoyed a leisurely lifestyle, just as inclined to play chess and discuss literature as to engage in musical projects.  He associated himself with the German intellectuals grouped around the Prager Tagesblatt newspaper and with Czech artists, painters in particular.  Notable about Krása’s circle was its humanistic attitude towards art that rejected chauvinism and its positive attitude towards the Czechoslovak nation.

Mature Years

Krása’s second style period dates from the early 1930’s. The first work from this time is his psalm cantata for mixed chorus and orchestra Die Erde ist des Herrn, performed in Prague by German musicians in spring 1932.  The work shows his new concern for attempting to control the macro whole; it is conceived monumentally, according to the models of certain French composers of the time.  In terms of development, the cantata represented progress in the composer’s ability to establish stylistic definition.  The press, however, received the work unfavorably.

Particularly sharp polemics arose over his opera Verlobung im Traum based on Dostoyevsky’s Uncle’s Dream; its premiere took place at the New German Theater as part of the Maifestspiele on 18 May 1933. The subject of debate concerned the composer’s dramaturgical method, which corresponded to Stravinsky in the admixture of disparate stylistic elements in the form of quotation, i.e. the composition of certain portions “in the spirit” of Rossini, Verdi and the German romantics, and in the alternation of buffo and psychological characterizations.  Although this kind of compositional aesthetic was nothing new, it triggered disfavor with many critics.  Other critics, however, in particular the German ones, were favorable towards Krása’s ability to characterize individual dramatic roles and, in the use of the aforementioned dramaturgical methods, they observed evidence of the composer’s stylistically progressive orientation.  Later that year, the opera won the Czechoslovakian State Prize.

Another work from Krása’s second period is his Chamber Music for Harpsichord and 7 Instruments (1936).  Representing his growing affinity for Czech musicians, he included the work in a program for a special evening of the Mánes musical group, a conglomeration of Czech modernist composers, where works by composers such as Pavel Bořkovec, František Bartoš, Iša Krejčí, and Jaroslav Ježek were performed.  Chamber Music fit in well in the program for its neoclassical finish.  In the press, however, the work triggered contradictory opinions.

Brundibár and Terezín

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 23 June 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.

By Thomas D. Svatos

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) was a child prodigy, a remarkable interwar talent in the musical life of German-speaking Europe, and in his later years, one of the most famous figures in Hollywood’s musical establishment. He is remembered today through his many movie scores, but also for his operatic and instrumental music.

Life

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, one of the most celebrated composing prodigies of all time and a pioneer in the development of the classical Hollywood film score, was born in Brünn, Moravia, on May 29, 1897, the second son of Julius Korngold and Josephine Witrofsky. The family moved to Vienna in 1901, and in 1904 Julius succeeded his mentor, Eduard Hanslick, as chief music critic for the highly influential daily publication, Neue Freie Presse, a position he held until 1934.

Korngold’s remarkable talents were evident from the outset. At the age of three, he could beat time with a wooden kitchen spoon; by five, he was picking out tunes from Don Giovanni at the piano and joining his father for informal recitals of two- and four-hand duets, and in his sixth year, he was jotting down musical ideas in a small notebook. A distant relative gave him additional keyboard lessons, but it quickly became apparent to Julius that the boy needed more systematic training, and so he sent him to Robert Fuchs, a composer, conductor, and professor of music at the Vienna Conservatory.

During this period, Korngold learned theory, counterpoint and analysis, and the handful of pieces he turned out at this time are a clear indication of Fuchs’ more traditional approach to teaching. In June 1906, Erich played several of his works for Gustav Mahler, who, upon hearing Gold, a cantata for solo voices, chorus, and piano, promptly declared the boy a genius and recommended that he avoid the rigors of academia altogether and study instead with Alexander Zemlinsky, known throughout the city as a composer and pedagogue, and as the principal conductor at the Wiener Volksoper.

The lessons, which started in mid-1907 and lasted until the summer of 1911, when Zemlinsky left Vienna to assume the Directorship of the Deutsches Landestheater in Prague, provided Korngold with a solid grounding in harmony, form, voice-leading and orchestration, as well as the opportunity to improve his already impressive keyboard skills. In addition to a number of works for solo piano, including two large-scale sonatas, a suite of six character studies based on scenes from Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and seven fairy tale pictures inspired by children’s stories, Erich also wrote his first chamber composition, an ambitious four-movement piano trio. In April 1910, a four-hand arrangement of his ballet Der Schneemann (The Snowman) was presented at a charity gala in Vienna; that October, Felix Weingartner conducted Zemlinsky’s orchestrated version at the Hofoper. The premiere was an unqualified success, and the piece soon appeared on some thirty stages in Austria and Germany.

Before long, many of Europe’s greatest talents were championing Korngold’s music. In April 1910, Bruno Walter, Arnold Rosé, and Friedrich Buxbaum gave the Viennese premiere of the Piano Trio, Op.1; the following year, his Schauspiel-Ouverture, Op.4, received its debut performance in Leipzig, with Arthur Nikisch conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and Artur Schnabel introduced the massive Piano Sonata No.2, Op.2, to Berlin audiences. In the fall of 1913, Schnabel joined Carl Flesch for the premiere of the Sonata in G major for Violin and Piano, Op.6, and the Vienna Philharmonic played the Sinfonietta in B major, Op.5, under the baton of Weingartner.

Korngold completed his first opera, a one-act domestic comedy entitled Der Ring des Polykrates (The Ring of Polycrates), in the spring of 1914. The work was too short for a single evening’s entertainment, so in order to prevent it from being coupled with an unsuitable partner, the composer provided a companion piece, Violanta, a one-act tragedy set in 15th-century Venice and based on a libretto by the playwright and novelist Hans Müller, an acquaintance of Julius’ from Brünn and a frequent contributor to the Neue Freie Presse. Both operas premiered at the Munich Hoftheater in March, 1916, with Bruno Walter conducting; the double bill was repeated less than a month later in Vienna, with Selma Kurz and Alfred Piccaver in Polykrates and Maria Jeritza as the ill-fated heroine in Violanta. In an instant the nineteen-year-old composer had established himself as one of the leading figures in contemporary German opera.

The First World War had relatively little impact on Korngold’s creative endeavors. Although he was drafted into the army in 1916, he escaped active duty when a doctor recognized him and exempted him from service on the front lines. Instead, he maintained the company’s archives, led the regimental band, and gave concerts and recitals of his own music to help raise money for the Austrian War Relief Fund. Two of his finest instrumental compositions, the String Sextet in D major, Op.10, and the incidental music for a production of “Much Ado about Nothing,” date from this period, as does his best-known and most successful work for the stage, Die tote Stadt (The Dead City), a three-act opera based on Bruges-la-Morte by the Belgian symbolist novelist Georges Rodenbach. After simultaneous premieres in Hamburg (where Korngold served as music director) and Cologne on December 4th, 1920, it moved on to even greater success in Vienna the following year, where Maria Jeritza sang the dual roles of Marie and Marietta. In November 1921, Die tote Stadt became the first German opera to be mounted at the Metropolitan Opera after the war.

During the early 1920s, Korngold wrote songs, chamber pieces and, in response to a commission from Austrian virtuoso Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in the war, a single-movement concerto for piano left hand and orchestra. His desire to get married and raise a family eventually led him to explore more lucrative artistic ventures. Much to his father’s dismay, he concentrated on adapting and conducting the largely-forgotten operettas of Johann Strauss, Jr.; Korngold’s arrangements and re-orchestrations of Eine Nacht in Venedig (A Night in Venice; 1923) and Cagliostro in Wien (Cagliostro in Vienna; 1927) helped spark renewed interest in Strauss’ music shortly afterwards. Korngold’s fourth, and largest opera, Das Wunder der Heliane (The Miracle of Heliane) occupied him throughout the mid-1920s. Although it enjoyed a moderate success in Hamburg in 1927, Heliane failed to win over audiences in Vienna and Berlin, most of whom expected another Die tote Stadt. Several backstage intrigues and a public row between Julius and supporters of Ernst Krenek’s jazz-infused Jonny spielt auf also damaged the opera’s reputation, but Korngold always regarded Heliane as his masterpiece.

In 1929, Korngold began a long and very productive association with the famed Austrian producer and director Max Reinhardt, who invited him to collaborate on a new production of Die Fledermaus in Berlin. The two men had known each other for several years, and Korngold had previously declined a request from Reinhardt to supply music for a production of Schiller’s “Turandot,” on the grounds that Puccini’s opera of the same name was set to premiere, but this new partnership allowed the composer an opportunity to revisit an operetta he loved greatly. He and Reinhardt teamed up again in 1931 on Die schöne Helena, a German-language version of Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène, for which Korngold composed an overture.

With the Nazi ascendancy in the early 1930s, Reinhardt fled Europe, eventually ending up in California. In 1934, he asked Korngold to Hollywood to take part in a film adaptation of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for Warner Bros. The worsening political climate in Europe, and the gradual disappearance of a market for his concert and stage works as a result, provided Korngold with an excuse to accept the invitation, and in the fall of that year, he and his wife, Luzi, sailed for the United States. Korngold set about arranging Mendelssohn’s incidental music, incorporating other pieces by the composer into the score, and in some cases, writing new, stylistically appropriate passages to link one cue to the next. He later described how after writing various musical sections out, recording them, and then playing them back on the set, he would “conduct the actor in order to make him speak his lines in the required rhythm,” a novel approach that most certainly stemmed from his years of experience in the theater.

Over the next four years, Korngold traveled regularly between California and Vienna. In addition to writing the scores for Captain Blood, Anthony Adverse, Another Dawn, and the Prince and the Pauper, and contributing music to Give us This Night, Rose of the Rancho, and The Green Pastures, he continued working on his fifth opera, Die Kathrin. In January 1938, executives at Warner Bros. cabled Korngold, offering him the score to The Adventures of Robin Hood. Since Die Kathrin was scheduled to premiere that March, he initially declined, but the director of the State Opera urged him to take the assignment. Shortly after arriving back in Hollywood, Korngold received the news that Chancellor Schuschnigg had met with Hitler at Berchtesgaden; on March 13, the Nazis annexed Austria. The remaining members of his family, including his oldest son, Ernst, his parents, and his in-laws, managed to escape Vienna at the last possible moment. Within two weeks, the Nazis had seized all of his property. Although Julius had rescued a number of manuscripts, the vast majority of the composer’s sketches and autographs were left behind. Luckily, two representatives from the publishing house of Josef Weinberger broke into the Korngold home, retrieved these items, and packaged them up for shipment to America.

Korngold vowed to abstain from writing anything for the concert hall or opera house as long as Hitler, “that monster in Europe,” remained in power, choosing instead to support his family—as well as those displaced by the ravages of war and the organizations devoted to their assistance—through the money he made as a film composer. In a career at Warner Bros. that lasted from 1934 to 1946, he penned a total of eighteen original scores, far fewer than, for instance, fellow composer Max Steiner, who routinely produced at least that many in a single year, and he won two Academy Awards. In his unique contract with the studio, Korngold set strict limits on the number of scores he would write—no more than two in a twelve-month period—and he asked to be able to turn down any project he decided was unsuitable. He also demanded, and was given, the right to reuse any of the music as he saw fit, provided it was not in conjunction with another motion picture, a clause that proved especially beneficial as he sought to revive his career after the war.

Korngold’s influence as a film composer cannot be overemphasized; indeed, he played a significant role in establishing the grammar and syntax of the so-called classical Hollywood film score at precisely the moment when its conventions were being formulated. Along with Steiner, he helped codify the use of clearly identifiable themes for characters, locations and situations, but unlike his colleague, Korngold employed subtle processes of thematic development as a way of drawing attention to relationships between individuals and the dramatic context in which they find themselves. Korngold also refined the practice of placing music just underneath the actor’s speaking voice so that dialogue was always audible, and he specified which instruments would be most effective given that voice’s distinct intonation. Lastly, Korngold’s intimate knowledge of orchestral textures helped standardize the sound of Hollywood film scores. Working with such gifted orchestrators as Hugo Friedhofer and Ray Heindorf, who were able to translate his instructions perfectly, he created a striking aural complement to the visual imagery on the screen, one which greatly influenced a later generation of composers, including John Williams and James Horner.

1945 marked an important turning point in Korngold’s life. His father, who had never been entirely comfortable in Los Angeles, and who had never approved of Erich’s decision to focus exclusively on film composition, died after a lengthy illness. The war in Europe also drew to an end. Korngold himself had grown increasingly disillusioned with Hollywood and with the kinds of pictures he was being given, and he was eager to return to writing music for the concert hall and the stage. In December 1944, he gave his wife the manuscript for a third string quartet; the following year, largely due to requests from Bronislaw Huberman, Korngold began revising a concerto for violin and orchestra that he had started in the late 1930s, a work that Jascha Heifetz would premiere in St. Louis in 1947 and record commercially in 1953. In 1946, he also enlarged a cello concerto he wrote for the film Deception into a larger, single movement piece, and this was performed in Los Angeles and subsequently published as his Op.37.

Like most of his fellow émigrés, Korngold longed for the day when he could return to Europe. The Vienna he and his family finally saw in May 1949 was substantially different from the city they left a little over a decade before. Although reconstruction efforts were well underway, many of the buildings that had been reduced to rubble as a result of the massive Allied bombings in March 1945 were still in ruins, including the Opera House. Family and friends had either left of their own accord or were victims of the Holocaust; a few who stayed even resented Korngold for “sitting out” the war in California. Moreover, a small cadre of Nazi sympathizers continued to occupy key social and cultural positions in Austria and Germany, and they were determined to prevent Jewish exiles from renewing their pre-war lives and careers.

Despite all of this, Korngold remained upbeat about his prospects. In January 1950, Wilhelm Furtwängler gave the premiere of the Symphonic Serenade for Strings, Op.39, and the following month, the composer accompanied mezzo-soprano Rosette Anday in a performance of the Five Songs for middle voice and piano, Op.38. Arrangements were also under way to stage Die Kathrin, and the State Opera had agreed to mount Die tote Stadt. Buoyed by what he thought were positive signs of a belated comeback, Korngold began writing his next major piece, a four-movement symphony.

Unfortunately, this optimism proved to be premature. The production of Die Kathrin, which had been postponed until October due to a strike, was not well received. Critics complained that the opera was old-fashioned and that Korngold’s brand of overt lyricism was no longer relevant. In addition, the planned performance of Die tote Stadt was cancelled because of scheduling problems and artistic differences. Finally, adding insult to injury, a special concert of his music, organized by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in April 1951, was poorly attended, and his former German publishers, B. Schott, Söhne, showed scant interest in reissuing any of the concert or stage works. Once he had been the talk of the town; now, Korngold felt that he had been forgotten. He decided it was time to take his family back to California.

The director William Dieterle contacted Korngold in 1953, asking him about working on a film biography of Richard Wagner that was to be shot in and around Munich. The two had been at Warner Bros. in the 1930s, but Korngold accepted the offer largely out of a sense of responsibility to Wagner’s music, which he feared would be subjected to the worst treatment. The project also gave him an excuse to be in Europe for the Viennese premiere of his Symphony in F-sharp, Op.40, in October 1954. The piece was under-rehearsed and Korngold pleaded that the performance be called off. While critical reaction was generally favorable, the composer was not satisfied. Sadly, he would not live to hear it played again.

In the remaining years of his life, Korngold began working on a second symphony and considered writing another opera, this one based on Franz Grillparzer’s “Das Kloster bei Sendomir”, but neither project was completed. In October 1956, he suffered a major stroke, and he died on November 29, 1957, at the age of sixty.

Over the last three decades, Korngold’s music for the concert hall, the opera house, and the silver screen has experienced a significant renaissance, thanks not only to the tireless efforts of his youngest son,George, who worked as a recording producer up until his death in 1987,but also to the extensive research efforts of Brendan Carroll, the composer’s principal biographer. Almost all of Korngold’s extant instrumental, orchestral and vocal works are available on compact disc, several of his most important pieces are regularly programmed around the world, and his film scores have enjoyed a renewed interest.

By Robert Kingston

Sample Audio Clips (Rhapsody Music Service):

Die tote Stadt – Gluck, das mir verblieb

Finale: Allegro assai vivace

Gideon Klein (1919-1945) was a pianist, composer, writer and educator. In his short life he combined a dizzying array of skills, experiences, musical styles and activity. He arranged Hebrew folk melodies, wrote quarter-tone compositions, served as repetiteur for the infamous production of the Verdi Requiem in Terezín, and was a formidable presence in the musical life of that place.

Michael Flach, who was in Terezín with Klein, created a poetic impression of his presence in this excerpt from “A Concert in the Old School Loft (played by Gideon Klein)”

“And yesterday that man cut all the veins

He opened all the organ pipes

He bribed all birds to make them sing

To make them sing

Even though the verger’s hard fingers harshly sleep on top
of us”

Life

Klein was born in the Moravian town of Přerov in 1919, the youngest of four children. His parents were Czech-speaking Jews and he grew up in a traditional atmosphere. His gifts showed early, and at age 11 he began piano lessons with Růžena Kurzová in Prague; by the time he was twenty he had moved permanently to the city. He began composing in 1934, and continued studying piano with Vilém Kurz. He completed his Master Class in 1939 and continued studying musicology at Charles University and composition with Alois Hába.

These studies took place in difficult and uncertain conditions — by November of 1939 the Czech universities were closed by the Nazis, and Klein was forced to leave the Conservatory by 1940. An attempt to study in London in response to an invitation to study at the Royal Academy of Music was aborted. For the next year Klein tried to continue his activities using the pseudonym Karel Vránek, playing concerts in private homes, and continuing to work as a composer. His own apartment became the site of something very much like a salon, a meeting place for musicians and writers. On December 4^th 1941 he was sent to Terezín where he remained for almost three years.

Klein’s time in Terezín is a record of remarkable activity under adverse circumstances. He became an avid educator, on musical and other subjects, and devoted himself to the teaching of the camp’s orphans. He remained active as a performer, serving as pianist for several opera productions and playing in solo recitals such works as Beethoven’s Op.110, Janáček’s Sonata, and Busoni’s transcription of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in C Major and performing such chamber compositions as the Schubert Trio in Bb, Op.99, and piano quartets by Brahms and Dvořák. He also displayed conspicuous artistic growth as a composer, completing several choral works, a formidable Piano Sonata, a Fantasy and Fugue for String Quartet, and his final work, a Trio for strings, completed a week or so before he was transported to Auschwitz.

Like so many others, his final days, spent at the Fürstengrube concentration camp, are impossible to document. One of the last sightings of Klein is described in Milan Slavický’s excellent biography of the composer. According to a prisoner named Hans Schimmeling, all new arrivals at Fürstengrube were subject to a doctor’s examination. They were forced to wait naked in a room together, guarded by an SS officer. There happened to be a piano in the room, and the SS man asked if anyone played the piano. “The eyewitness was not a musician and did not recognize the piece, yet to this day he remembers Klein’s playing and is convinced that had Klein played something to the guard’s liking (a waltz, a ditty or something of that kind), he could have alleviated his fate and perhaps even saved his life.”

Klein’s legacy was preserved by several musicians, and carried forward primarily by his sister, the remarkable Eliška Kleinová who took great pains to make his music available and encourage a range of performers to take an interest in it. In her goals, and hopefully in her successes she embodies many of the same intentions of the Orel Foundation.

Although there was a flurry of interest in Klein’s music immediately after the war, his legacy and that of his fellow Terezín prisoners did not fare so well under the Communists. Complex conflicts and geo-political alliances created an atmosphere of de facto anti-Semitism in Czechoslovakia under normalization, ranging from the Slánský trials to the more benign but similarly toxic undermining of both religious and cultural forms.

Works

In his short and eventful life Gideon Klein completed approximately twenty-five original works and ten or so arrangements of songs, mostly in Terezín. Milan Slavický divides the composer’s oeuvre into three periods. From 1929-38 we have the development of a self-taught composer, and works ranging from first attempts to more assured utterances. From 1939-41 Klein became more professional since he was attending Alois Hába’s composition class at the Prague Conservatory. It was at this time he experimented with quarter-tone music. The third and most significant period took place while the composer was in Terezín and combined a far-reaching modernity with the quite natural desire to speak to a large audience about the circumstances in which he found himself. It is this latter music that has been most performed.

Until 1990 it was assumed that most of Klein’s youthful compositions had disappeared during the war years. In the words of Milan Slavický “one of Gideon Klein’s friends found a suitcase that had remained unopened since the war—and in this suitcase were almost all Klein’s compositions from the period preceding Terezín. Gideon Klein gave this suitcase to his friend shortly before joining the transport for Terezín…In this respect the newly discovered works reveal Gideon Klein as an experimenting composer of lofty ambitions, in harmony with the most advanced endeavors, thus substantially modifying his image.”

Klein’s compositions are distinguished by a clarity of form, an ongoing interest in contemporary movements such as jazz, neoclassicism, serialism and microtonalism and an abiding interest in contrapuntal design and variation technique. He was also profoundly influenced by his career as a performer, and his exploration of Busoni’s Bach arrangements created a warm synthesis of Bachian intellectual goals and a kind of hyper-expressivity.

By Michael Beckerman

When she died in exile in France at the age of twenty–five, Vítĕzslava Kaprálová (1915–40) was on the threshold of a successful international career as a composer and conductor. During her short life, she composed no fewer than fifty works (many of which were published), conducted orchestras in Prague, London, and Paris, was praised by music critics across Europe, and was awarded the Smetana Award by the Bendřich Smetana Foundation.

On the eve of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Kaprálová left her homeland to study with the Czechoslovak composer Bohuslav Martinů in Paris. During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, she remained in France, continuing her studies with Martinů. During this time, she experimented with a variety of compositional styles ranging from a conservative folk–like idiom to a neo–classicism inspired by Stravinsky, and cultivated a kind of moderism modeled after her teacher, Martinů.

Shortly before the Nazi occupation of France, Kaprálová became terminaly ill.  She was evacuated from Paris to Montpellier by her husband, Jiří Mucha, to whom she had been married only a few months. As Paris fell to Hitler’s forces, Vítĕzslava Kaprálová succumbed to her illness.

Early Life

Born in Brno (Moravia, Czechoslovakia) on January 24, 1915, Vítĕzslava Kaprálová was the only child of composer Václav Kaprál and singer Viktorie Kaprálová. From an early age, following Kaprál’s return from conscripted service in Albania during World War I, Kaprálová studied music with her father, despite his belief that women could not succeed in the male–dominated field of music. By the age of nine, she had completed her first two compositions, “V řísí bájí” (“In the realm of myths”) and “Válka” (“War”), both for solo piano. The following year, another work for piano, “Na dalekou cestu” (“Before the Long Journey”), was published by Oldřich Pazdírek in Hudebni Besidka in Brno. Kaprálová also studied piano at home with her mother.

In 1923, Viktorie and Václav decided to separate; Václav traveled to Paris to continue his music studies. While in Paris, he met Bohuslav Martinů, who became a close friend of the Kaprál family.

In 1930, against the wishes of her father but with the support of her mother, Kaprálová entered the Brno Conservatory where she studied composition with Vilém Petrželka, choral conducting with Vilém Steinman, and orchestral conducting with Zdenĕk Chalabala. In the five years she spent at the Brno Conservatory she composed more than fifteen works for various solo instruments and ensembles, including her first ten pieces to be given opus numbers.

Her years at the Brno Conservatory were marked by a number of firsts for Kaprálová that played a marked role in her budding career. During these years, she experienced Martinů’s music for the first time; a performance of Martinů’s second piano concerto by Rudolf Firkušný greatly affected Kaprálová. She also received the first published reviews of her compositions in the area’s newspapers, most of which were filled with praise. Third, in 1935, Kaprálová made her conducting debut leading the Brno Conservatory Orchestra in the premiere performance of the first movement of her Piano Concerto in d minor, her graduation piece.

Prague Conservatory

In 1935, Kaprálová enrolled in the Prague Conservatory. She was accepted into the composition masterclass of Vítĕzslav Novák, a former student of Antonín Dvořák and one of the most highly regarded Czech composers of the day. She also began her studies in conducting with Václav Talich, a popular and distinguished Czech conductor. In Prague, as would have been expected of a talented music student, Kaprálová began composing in earnest.

Her first assignment for Novák’s masterclass proved to be a bit of a struggle for Kaprálová; she found her new composition teacher to be demanding and highly critical of her efforts.  After several revisions, the resulting work, a witty modernist work for piano entitled Grotesque Passacaglia, won first prize in a composition competition and was later published in Three Pieces for Piano, Op. 9.  After that first assignment, Kaprálová began composing quickly, often working on several works at the same time and completing them in rapid succession.  First were the remaining two piano works (Preludium and Crab Canon) for her opus 9, followed by her orchestration of a suite originally composed for piano.  When this Suite en miniature was premiered in Brno, it received a positive review from Czechoslovak musicologist and critic Otakar Šourek.  Also composed during this early period in Prague was a string quartet (opus 8), additional works for solo piano, and some sketches for vocal works.  But perhaps the most significant work begun by Kaprálová was her Military Sinfonietta, which she began sketching early in 1936.  Although Kaprálová composed several other works during her Prague years, the Military Sinfonietta would become one of her best-known works.

While her musical ideas for Military Sinfonietta (opus 11) were coalescing, she continued her studies at the Prague Conservatory.  In January 1936, Kaprálová graduated from Talich’s conducting masterclass and, in May, she passed the state piano teacher certification examination.  During those months, she also composed several works, primarily for small ensembles or voice and piano, and several compositions premiered in Prague and Brno.  Two highlights from the year include the premiere in early October of Kaprálová‘s String Quartet, Op. 8, by the Moravian Quartet in Brno and the radio premiere of her Piano Concerto in d minor, Op. 7, a couple weeks later by the Brno Radio Orchestra with Kaprálová on the podium (Kaprálová had also conducted the premiere of the concerto’s first movement at the Prague Conservatory the year before).  The performances received rave reviews in the Czechoslovak press, particularly from Šourek, who was becoming an important proponent of Kaprálová‘s work.

Perhaps the most important work to come out of Kaprálová‘s time at the Prague Conservatory was her Military Sinfonietta.  A single movement work for large orchestra, Kaprálová completed the composition in February 1937.  The work had several performances that were key to the young composer’s future.  First, the work served as her graduation piece; in June 1937, Kaprálová graduated with distinction from the Prague Conservatory.  Her teacher, Novák, with whom she worked very closely on the composition, was greatly impressed by it and recommended it the Czech National Women’s Council who wanted to include a piece by a Czech female composer at their gala in November.  In honor of that performance, Kaprálová dedicated the work to the Czechoslovak president, Edvard Beneš, who was also patron of the Czech National Women’s Council.  The reference to “military” in the title of the work often proved problematic for the young composer who had completed the work at a time when the future of the young Czechoslovak Republic seemed in jeopardy.  In her analysis of the composition, Kaprálová explained her choice of title: “The composition does not represent a battle cry, but it depicts the psychological need to defend that which is most sacred to the nation.” [quoted from kapralova.org, text translated by Leda Hatrick] The work was also included in the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in London in 1938 (see below).  At the end of 1938, Kaprálová was also awarded the Smetana Award by the Bendřich Smetana Foundation in Prague for her Military Sinfonietta.

In addition to her activities at the Conservatory, Kaprálová was also involved with the modern music scene in Prague.  Shortly after her arrival in Prague, she joined the Přítomnost Society, an organization dedicated to the creation and performance of contemporary music, which was very active in the capital during the inter–war years.  The musicians of the Přítomnost Society premiered several of Kaprálová’s works.  Works premiered by the Society included Three Pieces for Piano, Apple from the Lap (cycle of four songs), and April Preludes (for piano).  Kaprálová was also a member of Ochranný svaz autorský, a Czechoslovak composers’ rights organization.

Most of the works Kaprálová composed during her years at the Prague Conservatory, although relatively conservative in nature, do have a modernist bent.  As one might expect from student works, these combine the teachings of Novák with Kaprálová’s attempts to find her own compositional voice.  Her talent as a composer can be heard in the earliest of her compositions and can be seen in her preliminary analyses included with several of the works.  Her development into a modernist composer would take on a new depth as she moved from Prague to Paris to study with Bohuslav Martinů.

With Martinů in Paris

Although Kaprálová was not formally introduced to Martinů until April 1937, Martinů had been a friend of the Kaprál family for several years.  A native of a small village in Bohemia, Martinů studied for a short while at the Prague Conservatory before moving to Paris in 1923.  Although he never lived in the Czech lands again, Martinů was highly regarded as a Czechoslovak composer.  In 1937, Martinů visited Prague to begin preparations with Václav Talich (Kaprálová‘s conducting teacher) for the premiere of his opera, Julietta (an opera which would soon take on a special meaning for Kaprálová and Martinů), at the city’s National Theater the following year.  During that visit, Kaprálová met the much older composer, whose works she had admired for many years.  During that first meeting, Martinů advised Kaprálová that she should continue her studies with him in Paris.  Thus began a relationship that would deeply influence Kaprálová’s musical and personal life for the remainder of her lifetime.

The prospect of traveling to and studying in Paris was an expensive one.  Kaprálová applied to the French government for financial assistance and, with the help of with the help of Otakar Šourek, was awarded a scholarship for one year’s study at L’École Normale de Musique in Paris.  She arrived in Paris late in October 1938 and soon began to study conducting with Charles Munch and composition with Martinů.  During her first weeks in Paris, the young Czech composer was introduced to some of the most well known figures in Paris’s modern music community, including Darius Milhaud and Arthur Honegger.

In November, Kaprálová made a quick trip to Prague to conduct the performance of Military Sinfonietta for the Czech National Women’s Council, which received positive reviews in several publications.  Shortly after her return to Paris, she was informed that the same work had been selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) committee as one of the works to represent Czechoslovak contemporary music at the 1938 festival in London.  The other representatives of Czechoslovak music included Iša Krejčí, Václav Bartoš, and Viktor Ullmann.

Before departing for the festival in London in June, Kaprálová settled into life as a music student in Paris.  She grew close to Martinů, both personally and professionally, as the two shared ideas about their work. During this time, they collaborated on several of each other’s works, both in person and through correspondence; in the collection of Martinů’s papers, there are copies of 33 letters from the teacher to his student.  One of Kaprálová‘s works from this period known to be influenced by her relationship with Martinů is her Partita, a work in three movements for string orchestra and piano.  Begun early in 1938, Kaprálová would revisit and rework the piece several times over the course of her time with Martinů.  Most scholars familiar with the work of both Kaprálová and Martinů agree that this work is by far her strongest imitation of Martinů’s style.  However, what is unclear is whether her imitation of his style was a result of her admiration of him as a composer, her very close and personal relationship with him, the mere fact that she was studying with him and was expected to imitate his style, or a combination of all three.  Nonetheless, Kaprálová’s Partita, with its angular melodic lines and often dissonant harmonies, is one of her most modern works.

Martinů’s works from this period also reflect his close relationship with Kaprálová.  For example, in May 1938, he composed his String Quartet, No. 5, often considered to be a deeply personal work, and dedicated the completed sketch to his student.

International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM)

In June 1938 Kaprálová, accompanied by her teacher, traveled from Paris to London to participate in the ISCM festival.  In addition to her conducting duties, Kaprálová was also interviewed by the BBC and met with Jan Masaryk, the Czechoslovak ambassador to Great Britain.  But for the young Czech composer and conductor, the highlight of the trip must have been her appearance as conductor, leading the BBC Orchestra in a performance of her Military Sinfonietta at the festival’s opening concert.  Although she was the youngest composer participating in the festival, her performance on the podium and her skills as a composer were widely praised by those in attendance and in published reports of the concert.  Both The Daily Telegraph and La revue musicale printed reviews praising the work and its performance.  In his account of the ICSM festival, British composer Havergal Brian wrote, “The first work played and broadcast at the recent festival, a Military Sinfonietta, by Miss Vítĕzslava Kaprálová of Czechoslovakia proved an amazing piece of orchestral writing: it was also of logical and well balanced design.”

The concert was also sent by shortwave radio to the United States and rebroadcast by Columbia Broadcasting System.  A review of the festival in Time magazine shortly after the broadcast also described Kaprálová‘s work as a composer and conductor in glowing terms: “In its 16 years of existence, the [ICSM] society has now and then turned up a really golden egg. At the festival’s opening concert last week, seven strictly fresh compositions were chipped open, sniffed at. Four attracted considerable critical attention: …4) a Military Symphonietta in one movement by 22-year-old Vítĕzslava Kapr&#225lová, a good-looking Czechoslovakian girl. To Composer Kaprálová, who conducted her own lusty, sprawling composition, went the afternoon’s biggest hand. Dedicated to Czechoslovakia’s President Eduard Beneš, Composer Kaprálová’s Military Symphonietta was not supposed to summon up any aggressive blood. Said she: ‘My Symphonietta is not an appeal for war, but an appeal for a conscious defensive attitude.’”

The performance at the ICSM festival was a testament to Kaprálová’s talent as a conductor and composer.  Although her scholarship to continue studying in Paris with Martinů was in jeopardy, she was on the threshold of becoming a successful and well-known composer and conductor – a feat rarely attained by a young woman in the late 1930s.

Her Final Compositions

Following her success at the ICSM festival, Kaprálová returned to Paris before taking a holiday in home country.  It was a time of uncertainty and unrest in the countries of Eastern Europe.  Hitler had been gaining power in Nazi Germany and was eager to gain control of the Czech Sudetenland.  On September 29, 1938, in an agreement reached as part of the Munich Accord granted those lands to Germany; the Accord marked the beginning of the carving up of Czechoslovakia and the rest of Eastern Europe and opened the door to the full-scale German invasion of the Czech Lands the following year.

While she was in Czechoslovakia, Kaprálová continued composing, completing a couple of pieces that were already in the works and beginning the sketches of a few others.  In July, with the help of Martinů, she worked on the orchestration for her song Waving Farewell for solo voice and orchestra, a project begun earlier that year.  In September, she completed the sketches for Ilena, a work which began as a ballad and morphed into a cantata for mixed chorus and orchestra, and began orchestrating the work the following month; unfortunately the work remained unfinished.  In both works Kaprálová continued to search for her “voice,” using what she learned from her time at the Prague Conservatory together with what Martinů had taught her, combined with what she believed her compositional voice to be.

In October 1938, Kaprálová received a letter from Alfred Kalmus of Universal Edition (London) asking about the status of an orchestral work based on Czech folk songs that he, on behalf of the publishing house, had commissioned from her.  Although the original letter requesting the commission is lost, it appears that Kaprálová immediately began working on the commission when she received Kalmus’ second letter.  In just more than a fortnight she finished sketching the suite, which she titled Suita Rustica, and had completed the work by November 10, less than a month after receiving Kalmus’s letter.  Unfortunately, for reasons that still remain unclear, Kalmus and Universal Edition rejected the orchestral suite.  Nonetheless, Suita Rustica, with its use of traditional Czech folk songs in a conservative yet forward-looking style, remains one of Kaprálová’s most popular works, and is considered by many to be one of her finest works.

Kaprálová‘s future studies in Paris were far from certain.  Before the ICSM festival, her scholarship to study with Martinů and at L’École Normale de Musique had expired.  In order to resume her studies in Western Europe, Kaprálová needed once again to secure funding from the French government.  After a series of correspondence between representatives of the French and Czechoslovak ministries of culture, Otakar Šourek, Martinů, and even Czechoslovak author Karel Ĉapek, Kaprálová was finally able to return to Paris in late November 1938, just over a month after Edvard Beneš, the Czechoslovak president, was forced to into exile.  With the political situation in Czechoslovakia rapidly deteriorating, Kaprálová left her homeland for the last time, returning to Paris to resume her studies and her life with Martinů.

Her return to Paris marked the beginning of a busy time in Kaprálová’s life.  Professionally, as she resumed her studies, she began composing at a frenetic pace, beginning several new works in many different genres and, under the guidance of Martinů, revising old works, most notably the Partita.  Of the many new works begun during this period, several were never finished.  Nonetheless, the works from this period represent her most mature works, and indicate her ability to work across genres and styles.  These compositions also chart the development of Kaprálová’s personal voice.  Works begun and/or completed during the time (1939) include: In Memoriam of Karel Ĉapek (who died at the end of 1938) for violin and piano (later renamed Elegy); Concertino for Violin, Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 21 (unfinished); V zemi české / In the Czech Land, for voice and piano; the song cycle Zpívano do dálky / Sung into the Distance, Op. 22 [including Píseň tvé nepřítomnosti / A Song of Your Absence, Polohlasem / Under One’s Breath]; Sonatina for Violin and Piano [unfinished]; Můj milý človĕče / My Dear One [from Seconds, Op. 18].  As the political situation under Nazi occupation in the Czech lands continued to worsen, Kaprálová was inspired to compose works that expressed her feelings of loss for her homeland.  Some of these works, often dedicated to her parents, were recorded in Western Europe and rebroadcast in Czechoslovakia.

Due to the deteriorating political conditions across Europe and particularly in Paris, Kaprálová also began looking for ways to continue her studies in the United States.  She wrote letters making inquiries and asking for financial assistance.  She also applied to the Juilliard School in New York.  However, none of these attempts proved to be fruitful.

On a personal level, the beginning of 1939 saw the relationship between Kaprálová and her teacher deepen.  The two worked closely together on their respective compositions.  Martinů gave Kaprálová a piano sketch of his opera Julietta; the opera had previously been meaningful to both of them and the sketch confirmed its importance, and perhaps Martinů’s romantic feelings, for Kaprálová.  By June, Kaprálová wrote to her parents that she and Martinů were making plans to live together.  However, those plans never came to pass.

Around the same time, Kaprálová met Jiří Mucha, the son of the Czech art–nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, in Paris.  Being of similar age and with similar interest in the events happening in their common homeland, the two began to spend time together.  Kaprálová soon began to realize that a future with Martinů was not in her best interest.  As World War II spread across the European continent at the end of 1939, the political unrest grew in Paris and across France.  Martinů and his de facto wife, Charlotte, started to make plans to leave France, and Martinů and Kaprálová began to spend less time together as she became involved with Mucha.  Although Mucha enlisted in the French army, the two continued their relationship.

On April 23, 1940, Kaprálová and Mucha were married in Paris.  A week later, the first signs of the illness that would take Kaprálová’s life were documented.  Although she managed to maintain her musical activities in Paris, continuing to compose, publishing articles, and directing the newly formed Czech women’s choir in Paris, the illness rapidly took its toll.  She was in and out of the hospital for several weeks and on May 20 was evacuated by her husband from the increasingly stressful conditions in Paris to a hospital in Montpellier.  The day before her evacuation, Kaprálová saw her mentor and teacher, Martinů, for the last time. On June 14, the German’s occupied Paris.  Two days later, on June 16, 1940, with her husband by her side, Vítĕzslava Kaprálová died.

Kaprálová’s Posthumous Legacy

Most likely due the conditions of war–torn Europe and the presence of the Iron Curtain, Kaprálová was largely forgotten by the music community in France and in Czechoslovakia.  Several of the works she completed at the end of her life were premiered in the years immediately following the war; however, Kaprálová and her works were soon lost in the shadows of history.  Any mention of the young Czechoslovak composer was limited to a footnote in the studies of Martinů‘s life and music; usually these footnotes referred to her only as Martinů’s young mistress and made no mention of her ability as a composer, conductor and musician.

Starting in the last two decades of the twentieth century, interest in Kaprálová began to re–emerge.  In 1988, Jiří Mucha published a memoir of his life with Kaprálová; the following decade saw the publication of a fictional account of Kaprálová’s relationship with Martinů.  Scholarly interest in Kaprálová and her music received a healthy boost from the work of Karla Hartl and the Kaprálová Society.  Several of Kaprálová‘s works were also performed and recorded by musicians around the world.  Perhaps Kaprálová, a promising composer and musician and young victim of World War II, is now once again on her way to becoming an important part of the early Czechoslovak modernist movement.

By Clare Thornley