Casualties of War

[britishcomposer]

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BTW, fyrexia uploaded the PC op.20.
How may I access it, please?

Here are the links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=268K9UnBzTI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE2i1tPC_Wk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y558mi1_SrU&feature=related

[Gareth Vaughan]

Thank you very much.

[Christopher]

Boris Goltz (Борис Григорьевич Гольц, 1913-1942), Russian/Soviet composer, killed in the siege of Leningrad, aged 29.  Some of his pieces for solo piano have been recorded, and it seems he wrote some music for Soviet movies.  The Russian version of wikipedia also says that he wrote a piano concerto, and that would be of great interest. Also a festival overture, expromptu for variety orchestra, etc.  Does anyone know if it has been recorded?

Veniamin Fleischman (Rothschild's Violin, finished by Shostakovitch); ...

I have recently acquired a copy of Fleischman's (also transliterated as Fleishmann) one act opera Rothschild's Violin, with the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra and Gennady Rozhdestvensky. It is very enjoyable, and lovers of Shostakovich (who completed the dead composer's work) will not fail to hear his imprint.

[Ser Amantio di Nicolao]

What is known is that Leipzig was an important centre for printing music scores and during the first world war many of the plates were melted down and during the second world war even more plates and the original scores were lost through bombing.

Let us not forget Spyridon Xyndas, composer of the first Greek opera (and useful filler-out for any alphabetical collection, needless to say, were any of his works committed to disc), much of whose music was destroyed in the bombing of Corfu in 1943.

Eric raises an interesting point here. Trapp, Von Schillings et al. could maybe not be described as 'victims', but there is no doubt that their reputations suffered because of the war, even if some of them were allowed to continue their work after 1945. And even though for instance Von Schillings was arguably a nasty piece of work, I cannot help but feel somewhat sorry for those that through their a-political attitude (and therefore their lack of distance to the nazi regime) became the target of harsh criticism: people like Von Klenau (a very talented composer), Graener, Pepping and even Richard Strauss.

But leaving the nazi case (and threats of Godwin's law) aside, can we think of other people that were more indirectly hit by war? Ravel springs to mind, as someone utterly demoralised by the relentlessness of the war machine.

Alex Ross goes into some depth into the Strauss question in The Rest is Noise.  It's a fascinating and detailed read, even though I find myself less condemnatory of Strauss than he is.

[markniew]

He is not a casualty of war composer.
However Szymon Laks spent few years in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp where he became head of the prisoners' orchestra.

His Polish Suite can be found in the Downloads/Polish Music

 

[eschiss1]

Re Xyndas: true, there's no reason why Xenakis should have that letter all to himself

[Ser Amantio di Nicolao]

Re Xyndas: true, there's no reason why Xenakis should have that letter all to himself

Tangentially - see also:
 - Haris Xanthoudakis
 - Nikos Xanthoulis
 - Lorenc Xhuvani

I own something by each of the first two - can't say I like it, but it fills a space 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled tragedy...