In Praise of Forgotten Composers
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Conductor James Conlon calls it a weekend job, but his campaign to present music that was suppressed by the Nazi regime is much more important than a moonlighting gig. Tonight, he takes his cause to the stage at the Juilliard School, where he has embarked on a two-year residency exploring, as he puts it, what happens “when the classical arts clash with sociopolitical environment.” And if they ever did clash, the years of Nazi power offer the most brutal example of what happens. Some of the most talented composers, such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Kurt Weill, were forced to emigrate. Others were sent to concentration camps and killed, among them Hans Krasa and Viktor Ullmann. Walter Braunfels remained in Germany but spend the war as a recluse. All are becoming better-known, thanks in part to Mr. Conlon’s efforts.
Mr. Conlon’s goal, as he describes it, is “to get the music out there and reintegrate it into the tradition from which it came. I want to make these composers’ names known and make their stories known, which can provide a point of entry.”
Thursday’s program “Recovered Voices,” which repeats through December 16, includes music by Franz Schreker, Erwin Schulhoff, and Alexander Zemlinsky. Schreker, whose operas have been revived in Europe with much success but have yet to be staged in America, died in 1934, the year after the Nazis came to power. His once flourishing career was already in decline — he had been forced to vacate his post as director of the Berlin Hochschule. Schulhoff, who was not only Jewish but an avid Communist, was arrested in 1942 and sent to the Wülzburg camp, where he died of tuberculosis in 1942. Zemlinsky, the brother-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg, was rejected in love by the future Alma Mahler, probably because of his physical ugliness, a theme he developed in his opera “Der Zwerg.”
Mr. Conlon urges prospective listeners not to fall back on the old saw that if music has been neglected, there is an artistic reason. “Some people equated Zemlinsky with Wagner. They may have exaggerated but he is an important composer,” Mr. Conlon said. “Schulhoff wrote classical music incorporating jazz before Gershwin and music for pure percussion before Varèse. Yes, they struggled, but history has shown that composers struggle.”
These composers also lost out, Mr. Conlon notes, because of a progress-oriented way of looking at history. Most of them flourished when Schoenberg and his circle embraced atonality and developed the 12-tone system of composition. Such music was also proscribed by the Nazis, but it eventually became accepted throughout the West as the logical next step beyond complex chromatic music. “Music became dominated by that orthodoxy,” Mr. Conlon said.
The upcoming program at Juilliard will consist not only of music, but dance as well. “Using pieces from the period as the basis for new dance will force people to hear music that they would not otherwise hear. “
Schulhoff’s “Ogelala” actually was conceived as a ballet; the Juilliard performances will be its America premiere. The two other works were originally purely orchestral compositions. Zemlinsky’s last major work, “Sinfonietta,” will be presented in the manner of Stravinsky’s symphonies that were performed as ballets. Schreker’s Prelude to a Drama: “Die Gezeichneten” is an expanded version of the prelude to the opera. “It is very opulent and well suited for choreography,” Mr. Conlon said.
Mr. Conlon — who has refocused his career in America after a long stint in Europe that included the music directorship of the Paris Opera — will continue his crusade at the Los Angeles Opera, where he is music director. This season includes a double bill of Ullmann’s “Der zerbrochene Krug” and Zemlinsky’s “Der Zwerg”; Braunfels’s “Die Vögel” follows the next season, and in the 2009-2010 season “Die Gezeichneten” will mark the first American staging of a Schreker opera.
During his residency at Juilliard, Mr. Conlon plans to take up other issues in a various forums, including public lectures. “We’ll look at censorship, such as that experienced by Verdi, as well as more subtle factors, like the box office, which determines what’s heard and what isn’t,” he said.
And his session on American education, with its move away from “frills,” like music, in the 1980s, is sure to be contentious. “Society at large has really dropped the ball here, and the problem cannot be solved by arts institutions themselves.”
In addition to the dance program, Mr. Conlon will conduct chamber works this spring, a trio of one-act operas in fall 2008, and an orchestral concert in 2009.
Mr. Conlon’s work on composers suppressed by the Nazis brings unexpected rewards. “A woman once called to say that Zemlinsky and Ullmann used to have lunch at her home in Prague and wondered if I would like to talk about it. I sent a car for her at once. She was the daughter of the director of the Prague Conservatory and remembered both,” he said.
As she recalled, Zemlinsky’s appearance frightened the children. “About the only performer now who remembers Zemlinsky is Risë Stevens. She went to Prague in the mid-’30s and sang ‘Carmen’ with him conducting in 1938, before her father ordered her home because a war was about to start,” Mr. Conlon said. “She remembers Zemlinsky as being disappointed and depressed, maybe because he was not doing one of his own operas.” The political situation no doubt had something to do with it, too.