Above: Looking north on Westwood Boulevard at Wilshire, Los Angeles, 1941

 
The story is related by Dr. Michael Haas, author of the book Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis, and Co-Founder, Senior Researcher and Recording Producer of the exil.arte records exil.arte Center at Vienna’s University for Music and Performing Arts.

Additionally including a unique bonus of an exclusive new interview in which Walter Arlen at 100 years old discusses some of the songs he has composed in exile.

A significant number of composers were casualties of the horrific Holocaust era – defined by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as extending from 1933 to 1945. Some were murdered, but some survived in foreign countries they had fled to. Of those that survived as refugees living in exile, many began to write music that was often notably different in style and character from the compositions they had written before they were forced to leave their homelands. In particular, a striking common trend that arose among many dissimilar refugee composers was a powerful emotional need to reach back to the ambiences of the places and existences they had lost – worlds that had now vanished completely forever. The fully formed essence of this strongly definable characteristic was identified relatively recently by Dr. Michael Haas, author of the book Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis, and Co-Founder, Senior Researcher and Recording Producer of the exil.arte records exil.arte Center at Vienna’s University for Music and Performing Arts. While he was acquiring substantial collections of the music of exiled composers for the Center, he recognised this reaching-back element in the works of the majority of the composers who had been forced out of their countries, and he termed it “Music of Inner Return.” He commissioned some new recordings of such music that had never previously been recorded, and for this feature Song of Inner Return here he describes to Jon Tolansky the remarkable phenomenon of two contemporaneous composers from the same country whose songs were written in exile yet whose styles varied strikingly in character: Robert Fürstenthal and Walter Arlen (born Walter Aptowitzer). He also touches on songs by Richard Fuchs and Hans Eisler – and as a unique bonus there is additionally an exclusive new interview with the centenarian Walter Arlen, recorded for this feature, in which he discusses some of the songs he has composed in exile. Recorded illustrations of all the music discussed in the feature are included.

Because of the Covid 19 Health Crisis, the discussion with Michael Haas had to be recorded via Skype and the interview with Walter Arlen had to be recorded by telephone. The sound quality on these interviews is thus inferior to the usual standard that we present, however both items are intelligible.

—Jon Tolansky, Feature Producer