Musical migrants: refugee musicians from Nazi Germany and Austria in Britain

Meyn, N. (2019) Musical migrants: refugee musicians from Nazi Germany and Austria in Britain. In: German Research Seminar, 6 February 2019, King's College London. (Unpublished)

Abstract

Lecture-recital given at King's College London, exploring the legacy of musicians who emigrated from Germany and Austria in the 1930s and settled in Britain. The lecture told the stories of some of these musicians, including the pianists Ferdinand Rauter and Paul Hamburger, the conductor/composers Peter Gellhorn and Karl Rankl as well as the composer and academic Hans Gál, who created the brilliant revue ‘What a Life!” during British internment on the Isle of Man in 1940. The recital included a selection of songs from this revue as well as Lieder and English Songs written by these composers before and after their emigration. Also discussed was the protectionist policy of the Incorporated Society of Musicians that campaigned to prevent these refugees from ‘taking the bread out of the mouth of native musicians’ as well as ideas from the book ‘The Freedom of the Migrant’ by the philosopher Vilém Flusser.

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