The Pogrom Memorial Concert in November on the Wieden is already a tradition. After it fell victim to the pandemic last year, as so many things did, it can take place again this year. This time we will play music by the composers Robert Fürstenthal and Robert Kahn. Both are very much in the tradition of German late Romanticism, but have completely different biographies.

Kahn was one of the most respected composers of his time and was already 73 when he had to flee from the Nazis into exile in England. As a result, his work was largely forgotten; he was ostracised as a Jew by the Nazis, and he was too conservative for the post-war avant-garde as a late Romantic who was still completely committed to tonality. Only in recent years has his music been gradually rediscovered and appreciated.

In contrast, Robert Fürstenthal, born in 1920, had no chance at all to realise his dream of studying composition. He had to flee to the USA at the age of 18 and lost sight of his great childhood sweetheart, Franziska Trinczer. In the USA, he worked as a tax consultant and auditor, but never wrote a single note again. It was only when he met his childhood sweetheart again by chance in 1973 that he also began to compose again as a purely self-taught composer. “When I compose, I am back in Vienna,” he once said. However, he never seriously thought of publishing them, so that we can only discover his compositions now, after his death.

Come and listen!

Monday, 15 November 2021, 7:00 pm
Ballroom at the Amtshaus Wieden
Favoritenstraße 18, 1040 Vienna

Registration required under Tel.: 4000 04119

Please note the current Corona rules:
2G and FFP2 masks are mandatory in the Amtshaus.