Music | PhD candidate rescues music by persecuted composers from oblivion
For decades, the music of Dutch Jewish composers lay gathering dust in attics, sheds, and forgotten orange crates. Music historian and UvA PhD candidate Carine Alders investigated why this music was forgotten for so long. “It is a misconception that good music will automatically rise to the top.”
For half a century, the music of composer Daniël Belinfante was only heard in public once. The Jewish-Dutch composer, who was deported and murdered during World War II, disappeared almost completely from the musical memory of the Netherlands after the war. His name—like that of many other persecuted composers—fell into oblivion, and that silence lasted for decades.
Music historian Carine Alders wants to make these forgotten voices audible again and will soon receive her doctorate on the disappearance of these composers from the Dutch musical canon. “The Nazis wanted not only to murder people, but also to erase their names and their work,” says Alders. “By playing their music again, we can thwart part of that plan. That is an act of justice.”
Alders was the business manager of the Leo Smit Foundation for ten years. This foundation brings music that was banned during World War II back to the stage. Alders resigned from her position to focus entirely on her research into the composers she wants to make audible again. She discovered that the forgotten music was not forgotten ‘by chance’ but as a result of persecution and the way music history was written.
Oppression
During the German occupation, Jewish musicians were systematically removed from public life. Music by Jewish composers was no longer allowed to be performed in public, nor was it allowed to be written about in the newspapers. As a result, Dutch-Jewish composers fell into oblivion, says Alders.
In addition, Alders discovered in her research that a network is also needed to give music a platform. In Belinfante’s case, this was lacking after the war. “Music is an art form that can only exist within a network; you need performers, concert hall programmers, reviewers, people who make your music heard. Composers depend on that network to secure a place in music history. If that network is destroyed, the music disappears too.” Belinfante and many members of his network were killed in the war, causing his music to disappear as well, says Alders.
Liberated, but not heard
When liberation came, the concert halls were filled with music again, but not with the works of the persecuted, says Alders. “During the first gala concert after the war, intended to reopen concert life, only music by composers who were part of the resistance or at least had not collaborated with the occupiers was heard. But if you were arrested and sent to a concentration camp or went into hiding, you had little opportunity to resist. Then you didn’t meet the criteria to be celebrated as a resistance hero.”
Moreover, after the war, the Netherlands saw itself primarily as a country of resistance fighters. It was mainly about heroes who contributed to the victory from within. Alders: “The story of the murdered Jewish composers didn’t quite fit in with that, because it might lead you to think that the resistance hadn’t been so successful after all.” As a result, even after the liberation, the music of persecuted composers was still not heard. “By the time there was more room for the war experiences of Jewish Dutch people, their music had been forgotten.”
Trash
Some lost works only surfaced many decades later, and often by chance. “Many composers hid their sheet music just before their homes were ransacked during their arrest.” Sheet music by Jewish composer Samuel Schuijer was found by schoolchildren in a trash can. “Someone probably renovated his old house and threw the hidden work away with the rubbish. The schoolchildren thought it was a shame that such beautiful paper was lying in the rubbish bin and took it home with them. It was only a few years later that their parents decided to take the music to the archive.” The son of Jewish composer Hans Lachman kept his father’s work in an orange crate in a garden shed, thinking it would be unimportant because no one knew his father as a composer anymore.
“When you listen to that forgotten music now, you can only conclude that it is very good music,” says Alders. “We tend to believe that good music will naturally rise to the top. But that is a misconception,” she says. “Not everything that is forgotten is bad. Music history depends on people who write about it, and whether it is performed at all.”
Today, forgotten repertoire is more often given a voice again. On November 29, the Leo Smit Foundation is co-organizing the festival Forbidden Music Regained at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where students will perform works by composers who were silenced during the war. Alders: “It’s always a bit bittersweet. You’re happy that the music is finally being heard, but you also think: what if they hadn’t been murdered? Still, the feeling of restoration prevails; they didn’t succeed in erasing them from history.”
Carine Alders will defend her dissertation Caught in a web of silence. Composers in Dutch music history 1920-1955 and the impact of World War II on October 29 at 2:00 p.m. The defense will take place in the Aula. Entrance: free.
