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Evidence from a fragmented musical history: Notes on Berthold Goldschmidt's Chamber Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Michael Struck
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Extract

In Germany during the last few years interest has at last been growing in composers who were forced to go into exile (and were still able to do so) in the age of National Socialism. Thus attention has been focussed again in the land of his origin – though pretty belatedly – on the composer and conductor Berthold Goldschmidt, born in Hamburg in 1903. Goldschmidt had to reach a positively biblical age before he received serious consideration: in 1987, on the occasion of the Berlin Festival ‘Music in Exile’; in Duisburg, Hamburg, Essen, and – with heightened intensity – in the most northerly region of the Federal Republic, Schleswig-Holstein. Some of his works were performed on these occasions, and received with amazement and perplexity. But above all Goldschmidt was constantly questioned in interviews and panel discussions, as a ‘witness of his time’. Of course he is, beyond doubt, the ideal conversational partner: he can describe and comment on German musical life in the 1920's and early 1930's most vividly and with a touch of irony; he can report movingly, yet apparently without any trace of bitterness, on the abrupt breaks in his life and his musical career – emigration to England, the struggle to make a fresh start in that country (of which he became a naturalized citizen in 1947), the attempt to establish himself as a creative artist. One learns a great deal about the numerous disappointments on the way to a viable and satisfying existence as an artist, and about his virtual silence as a composer for almost 25 years, from 1958 to 1982.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tempo , Issue 174 , September 1990 , pp. 2 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 In England this tendency does not seem so pronounced, for obvious reasons: insofar as Goldschmidt's works have been performed and discussed here, it was largely on account of their artistic direction and quality. cf. above all the illuminating articles by David, and Matthews, Colin in this periodical (Tempo Nos.144 and 145, 1983) and 148 (1984)Google Scholar, which to date have had no response in Germany.

2 Redlich, Hans F. in his article ‘Berthold Goldschmidt’ in Die Musik in Geschichle und Gegenwart (Music in History and the Present-day) Vol. 5, Kassel and Basel 1956, Col.487Google Scholar.

3 Karoly Csipak: ‘Berthold Goldschmidt im Exil’. The composer in conversation about musicians in exile, and musical life, in: Verdrängte Musik (Displaced Music) Berlin composers in exile, H. Traber & E. Weingarten, Berlin 1987, pp. 43–77 Google ScholarPubMed. It is regrettable, though, that various facts have been misrepresented or misunderstood in the printed interview.

* As a matter of record, Goldschmidt's Second Quartet has been publicly performed in the UK by three string quartets (led by Harry Blech, Erich Gruenberg, and Carl Pini respectively), and by the English, Dartington, and Fairfield Quartets; it has also been performed in the USA by the Pasadena Quartet. All these ensembles are now defunct; but in Germany it is currently in the repertoire of the Parnasso, Auryn, Mandelring and Frankfurt Radio Quartets. (Ed.)

* Goldschmidt has on other occasions expressed warm admiration for Schoenberg's String Trio. (Ed.)

4 cf. Goldschmidt's, reminiscences ‘Brief Encounter, 1931’ in Tempo 1990, No. 173, pp.3–5 Google Scholar.

5 In addition Goldschmidt's own musical logogram BG (B ь G) can be discovered in the ‘Hamburg’ cipher.

6 This also includes the tranquil ending of the versions of bars 107ff and 233ff (without a change of tempo).

7 Further subtle correlations cannot be enlarged upon here.