Casualties of War

[britishcomposer]

I meant the first one written for Rascher.

[eschiss1]

Noch Rascher? (erm... and now we leave this extended humoresque & return you to the...)

[fyrexia]

I am not sure if suicide can be part of the thread.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB7jdbnYa14

Nektarios Chargeishvili, georgian composer. Killed himself, after been persecuted for years for writing "formalist" music during the stalinist era. I would actually blame Khrennikov. He is the boss in all the soviet composer persecution project. Between some victims, might include shostakovich, weinberg, mosolov, roslavets, eiges, popov, shebalin and so much others.
Chargeishvili was among all those, and ended up killing himself.
At least this all happen during war time, thats for sure.
Link above is his symphony. Last piece he ever wrote. Killed himself write after finishing it. I think you can hear some echoes of death in there.

All best,

Tony

[eschiss1]

well, I suppose it's good to have someone to blame however remotely (Khrennikov to blame for Shostakovich's death? that one is new to me!), unlike in literature and the arts etc. where it's pretty clear who to blame for murderous persecutions (Stalin, etc.) (some but few of which happened to composers in the same period, I gather- and to Weinberg in part at that time - not murderous, but it was a close thing...- not because of his music but because of his family relations.)  ... anyway.

[fyrexia]

I should have mentioned that this victims, i was referring,  as victims of being persecuted and sewed. There deaths has nothing to do with khrennikov.
Khrennikov just led them to a harder life durin 1940 to almost 1960.

Tony

[John H White]

I wonder how many how many musical masterpieces, both in manuscript and printed form, were destroyed as a result of the intensive Allied bombing of a number of German cities during World War 2.

[giles.enders]

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.

[mbhaub]

How much music was lost forever by the Nazi destruction of the work of Jewish composers? It's frightening to think how close we came to losing most of Korngold's work.

[eschiss1]

I have a CD and some tapes of some of the surviving music of Viktor Ullmann and have heard music by others (Schulhoff e.g. - his sextet is also in my collection, have heard the quartets, though those are all pre-war; Gideon Klein's excellent string trio) who died in the Shoah.  (Have also been curious about composers, some of whom survived the wars, some of whom did not, who followed the official line, were by their lights patriotic, were in some cases rewarded well, depending on the caprice of the dictators at times (caprice seeming to be an essential part of some of these- well, another subject!) - (admittedly Trapp and Hessenberg (1908-1994) lived fairly good and long lives, to choose apparently two cases. Have heard a bit of Hessenberg's chamber music- sounds pretty good to me, in point of fact, though maybe too Hindemith-influenced for this forum. (The first movement of his 4th string quartet in E minor op60 (pub 1958), and only movement of his cello sonata in C op23 (pub 1942), seem to have quite good inspiration and brio...)
Trapp's music I gather is perhaps not so good, but I have not heard it and will wait until I have. I don't know if one should regret that their music's reputation is a casualty, not so much of war, as of their composer's foolishness. Maybe it should be performed anonymously and royalties sent quietly.)

[Ilja]

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.

[jimmattt]

Edmund von Borck, German soldier killed in Italy, have his piano concerto and a saxophone concerto.
http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-08262003-191536/

[jimmattt]

ignore, missed earlier reference

[eschiss1]

hrm. the effects of the 1848 revolutions on many people not directly involved in them comes to mind though that's almost entirely a tangential matter... will think about the question myself.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Code Select Expand

BTW, fyrexia uploaded the PC op.20.

How may I access it, please?

[britishcomposer]

Code Select Expand

BTW, fyrexia uploaded the PC op.20.

How may I access it, please?

Sorry, Gareth, I should have mentioned that it is at fyrexia's youtube channel!