WRTI honors the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and joins with those in our community who remember them, with special music on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Thursday, April 12, starting at 10 am.
You'll hear works by composers that the Nazis considered "dangerous" to the Reich; music labeled "Entartete" or "degenerate" was banned, and many of the composers of those works were imprisoned and killed.
The list of composers and conductors banned by the Nazis is long, and contains some of music's greatest figures. Felix Mendelssohn was on the list, and so were Cole Porter and Irving Berlin.
Many composers who were living in Germany and Austria, though were banned, and many lost their lives. Kurt Weill and Erich Wolfgang Korngold are two of the figures who came to the U.S.
Those not fortunate enough to leave in time included Franz Schreker, Leon Jessel, Gideon Klein, Viktor Ullman, Hans Krasa, and Marcel Tyberg. They may not be well known today, as their lives were lost the concentration camps. Conductors were not left off the list either, and two of the most famous, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer, came to America.
Join us for this special day of remembrance.