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Home , Erich Zeisl, Erwin Schulhoff, Roderich Menzel, Viktor Ullmann

Portrait

In the Labyrinth of Identities Rediscovering Hans / Hanuš Winterberg by Michael Haas

Boosey & Hawkes, he worked as a répétiteur in Brno (Brünn) Though not allowed to leave the Ghetto and Jablonec nad Nisou (Gablonz an der until June 3, on June 7 he returned to his in cooperation with Neiße). former apartment. Exilarte, present the ’s rich, previously In the Czechoslovakian census of 1930, The Fröhlich & Winterberg factory, prop- unpublished work. Rudolf Winterberg registered his family erty of his father Rudolf and Rudolf’s as linguistically and culturally “Czech,” brother-in-law Hugo Fröhlich, had been due to a certain loyalty to then-President aryanized in 1940. Rudolf had died in hat does nationality say about a Masaryk. However, this was probably also 1932, while Hugo Fröhlich perished in composer? Stravinsky is credit- to avoid losing government contracts for Dachau in December 1940. Hans’ mother W ed with saying that a compos- the Fröhlich & Winterberg factory. On was shot in August 1942 in the Maly Tros- er should always have his passport in his May 3 of this same year, Hans Winterberg tinez extermination camp. pocket – that is, he should always be cer- married the German-Bohemian composer tain of his musical origins and positioning. Maria Maschat, a Roman Catholic and for- For an artist deeply anchored in the Rus- mer prodigy. On 3 April 1935, their sian tradition, this poses less of a problem daughter Ruth was born. When the Nazis than it does for one whose formative ex- occupied in 1939, making it the periences came out of the cultural melting capital of the so-called Bohemian Protec- pot of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy – torate, the marriage between Maria and one whose identity is multiple in nature. Hans Winterberg was officially registered For Hans/Hanuš Winterberg, this multiple as a “mixed-race marriage.” In 1941, identity involved being musically rooted Maria and Ruth received German citizen- in the Bohemian-Moravian tradition, be- ship, and were registered as living apart ing close to the second School, from Hans Winterberg beginning in 1942. speaking better German than Czech, and The marriage was officially dissolved on being able to either avow or ignore his 2 December 1944 “under the terms of the Jewish identity until 1939, when ignoring Reich Marriage Act.” On 25 September it was no longer possible. Hans/Hanuš 1943, Winterberg was compelled to take Winterberg’s life and work offer a prime up forced labor. On 26 January 1945, he example of the fate of art and artists when was deported to the Theresienstadt ghet- politics demands clear-cut identities, and to. Due to his late arrival, he escaped the where ambivalence is the source of inspi- deportation of musicians in ration and creativity. that sent Viktor Ullmann, and Hans Krása to their deaths in Auschwitz. Winterberg was born in Prague on On 8 May 1945, he was liberated by So- 23 March 1901, the son of factory owner viet soldiers. During his imprisonment, Rudolf Winterberg and his wife Olga (née he composed the Theresienstadt Suite for Popper). He came from a Jewish family. piano. His father’s father Leopold (Löwi) Win- terberg was a rabbi and cantor in Aus- sig (Ústí nad Labem), and later the first rabbi in Prague-Žižkov. Hans learned pi- ano with Terezie Goldschmidtova (born Thèrese Wallerstein; later murdered in Maly Trostinez in 1942), and later studied composition with Fidelio F. Finke and con- ducting with Alexander Zemlinsky at the German Academy of Music and Perform- ing Arts in Prague. In 1939/1940, he stud- ied composition with Alois Hába at the Prague State Conservatory, where was a fellow student. In between his

J on S uper | | Priska Ketterer B orggreve Marco Fotos: Kreitmeir Peter A ll images: archive studies with Finke, Zemlinsky and Hába,

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But did he intend from the beginning the Má vlast symphonic cycle and operas “I have come to the conclusion to not return to Prague? Prague had such as Dali­bor and Prodaná nevěsta (The that my grandfather Hans emerged from the war largely unscathed, Bartered Bride). For many , in- Winterberg was of course not a while a significant portion of cluding the Pavel Haas, Erwin Sudeten German, but rather a had been razed to the ground. Winter- Schulhoff and Hans Krása, German was Jew of Prague. Hans Winterberg berg had lost virtually his entire family a language that said nothing about their never had reason or occasion to in the Shoah. For most survivors, a re- national identity. Some of the most sig- regard himself as ‘German.’ Why? turn or actual relocation to the country nificant German-language authors of the Three peoples, the Czech, the of the Nazi criminals was unthinkable. first half of the 20th century were from German and the Jewish, had lived Yet all the people Winterberg had been Prague, including Franz Werfel, Max alongside each other for centuries closest to in pre-war Prague were now Brod, Egon Erwin Kisch, and in the Bohemian territories. All either dead or living in . Appar- . It would be absurd of Winterberg’s ancestors were ently, Czech acquaintances, pointing to to call these figures “Sudeten Germans.” exclusively who had settled his German-language background, also However, this is what befell the Ger- along the oldest long-distance suggested that he move to , as man-speaking composers Hans Winter- trade routes since the 11th century. he explained in a 1955 letter to his for- berg, Walter Süsskind, Hans Feiertag and I can establish this with certainty mer fellow student in Prague, composer Kurt Seidl – all of whom worked in Prague thanks to the genealogical work Heinrich Simbriger. (In 1966, Simbriger – in the Prague-based German-language done by Eric Randol Schoenberg, founded the Esslinger Music Archive music press of the 1930s. Feiertag’s case grandson of the composer of the Artists Guild, today deposited in in particular illustrates the term’s ab- . Thus, Hans the Sudeten German Music Institute struse and problematic nature, as he was Winterberg was explicitly not a (SMI), founded in Regensburg in 1990). a native of Vienna. As a portmanteau, the German (!) Jew. What connection In 1947, Winterberg arrived in Rieder- term “Sudeten German” was ultimately should Hans Winterberg have had au am Ammersee, where he lived near used for all German-speaking Czechs ex- with the German people, aside his daughter Ruth and her mother, who pelled from following the from language and culture? But in 1948 helped him obtain positions at Beneš decrees of 1945. he also had this connection to Bavarian Radio and the Czech culture, which can certainly Conservatory. He subsequently remar- be heard in his musical work. He ried three times, but had no more chil- repeatedly professed an allegiance dren. His fourth wife, Luise-Maria Pfeif- to universalism as ‘a kind of er, a “Sudeten German,” already had an bridge between Western culture adult son, Christoph. (thus, also the German) and that Nationality? of the East’ (Sudetendeutsches What kind of back- Musiklexikon 2000).” Sudeten German or Czech or… ward, perverse Peter Kreitmeir idea is this? Defining the politically contaminated Due to the Beneš decrees expelling Ger- term “Sudeten German” is no simple Hans WInterberg man-Czechs from Czechoslovakia, Ma- task. The “’ referred to a ria and their daughter Ruth had to leave province in the north of Czechoslovakia the country in 1945. The marriage had after that country gained national inde- by then already fallen apart and thus, the pendence following . The enforced divorce under Nazi law had be- grouping included portions of Moravia, come a reality. and Silesia. The population was Winterberg belonged to the Ger- made up of Czech citizens who predom- man-speaking Jewish cultural elite in On 27 December 1945, they registered inantly spoke German. In 1938, this area Czechoslovakia during the interwar peri- their residence in Ammerland, south of was surrendered to Hitler’s Germany by od. As a student at both the Prague State Munich. In June 1946, Winterberg, who Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini Conservatory and the German Academy, was unaffected by the Beneš decrees in the so-called . In he was influenced on the one hand by since his family had registered them- general, however, the term also referred the Bohemian-Moravian tradition. He is selves as “Czech” in 1930, applied for a to German speakers in all the border ar- indebted to Janáček especially in his use passport in order to retrieve manuscripts eas of Czechoslovakia. Just over 23% of folkloric elements, but above all in his that – or so he argued to the Czech au- of the total Czech population was Ger- fondness for polyrhythmic structures – a thorities – he had, in an effort to ensure man-speaking, including nearly all Czech characteristic that links him with Pavel their safekeeping, left with friends else- Jews. However, the German-speaking Haas, Hans Krása, Bohuslav Martinů and where in Europe. If it had been clear to Czech population also included Czech Erwin Schulhoff. On the other hand, he is the Czech authorities that Winterberg nationalists such as Bedřich Smetana also close to the , wanted to immigrate to Germany, the (born Friedrich Smetana, 1824 – 1884), with this influence certainly transmitted passport and travel most likely would not who is still celebrated as a Czech nation- through Zemlinsky. He wrote about his have been approved. al composer today due to works such as career in an autobiographical sketch:

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represents a path that other composers of the Czech prewar avant-garde would have taken had they survived. Quite a few com- positions by the introverted and reclusive composer were performed and recorded for broadcast during his lifetime, but none were published.

In 2002, 11 years after Winterberg’s death on 10 March 1991, his adopted son Chris- toph Winterberg sold the estate to the Sudeten German Music Institute (SMI). One of the conditions of the contract was that the work be kept from the public until 1 January 2031. The relevant paragraph of the 2002 contact reads as follows: “For reasons of personal privacy rights, the Su- deten German Music Institute prohibits the entire estate of Hans Winterberg, as transferred to us, from being used in any way until 31 December 2030.” With re- gard to any future performances, the SMI “Originally inspired by Arnold Schoen- surreal, the uncanny, as we encounter also agreed on a provision “…ensuring berg, in the end, I found a polyrhythmic, it in Kafka, and in the operas of Schul- that any such event must take place exclu- polytonal path.” hoff, Krása and Martinů. Winterberg did not compose any operas. However, he Just as Winterberg had a very personal, thought and conceived his pieces theatri- Available on CD individual concept of “impressionistic” cally. Like Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin composition, so was his transformation or Stravinsky’s Firebird, his ballets can of Schoenberg’s technique entirely un- be performed in concert as free-standing orthodox, and adapted to his own needs. tone poems. The actions are almost al- In his piano cycle Neoimpressionistische ways of a phantasmagoric nature, as seen Stücke in 12-Tönen (Neo-Impressionistic in Ballade um Pandora, Die Sonnengötter, Pieces in 12 Tones) he placed the suppos- Himmli­sche Hochzeit, Mandragora – Mys- edly irreconcilable spheres into a single tisches Ballett and Moor-Mythos (Ballad of context – certainly not without irony, but Pandora, The Sun Gods, Celestial Wedding, nevertheless in a fashion entirely charac- Mandragora – Mystical Ballet, and The teristic of his work. In 1967, he wrote in Myth of the Moor.) a letter to Wolfgang Fortner: “As a com- poser, I’ve got to know, so to speak, all of His orchestral works are also program- the music-developments of our century matically conceived. These include Arena and have worked within each of them, 20. Jahrhundert, Stationen für Orchester starting with Impressionism or Expres- and Symphonischer Epilog (The Arena of sionism from the 1920s, during a peri- the 20th Century, Stations for Orchestra, , Volume One od when serial and atonal compositions Symphonic Epilogue), to mention just a few. Arizona Wind Quintet from Schoenberg and his followers were He referred to his Symphonische Reise- and other artist also current. Later, and since my emigra- Ballade (Symphonic Travel Ballad) as a Toccata Classics TOCC 0491 tion from Prague (after the Second World “surrealistic dream ballet,” and provides War), I’ve intensively followed new music his idea of a storyline in the foreword. Piano Music, Volume One developments, which have taken place Even in his symphonies and piano concer- Brigitte Helbig, piano specifically here in Germany. Neverthe- tos, Winterberg seems to carry the listener Toccata Classics TOCC 0531 less, after many long decades of musical out of reality through a musical wormhole roundabouts, I’ve finally found for my- into an uncanny world of irreality; yet they Piano Sonata No. 1 (1936) | self, even if only in my more advanced are conceived with such architectonic Suite Theresienstadt (1945) years, a personal style that not just in my precision that they never lose themselves Christophe Sirodeau, piano own opinion, represents something akin in associative flourishes. Winterberg Melism Records MLSCD011 to a free variation of .” also left behind an extensive, highly de- (“Feinberg & Winterberg: manding and rewarding body of chamber The Lost Works”) Yet what links Winterberg most deeply music for a wide range of ensembles, as with the spirit of the Czech and particu- well as numerous piano works and songs larly Prague culture of the 1920s and with piano or orchestral accompaniment. 1) Contract between Christoph Winterberg and the SMI, signed on 2 September 2002. A copy is in the possession 1930s is the element of the fantastic, the One can assume that Winterberg’s music of Winterberg’s grandson, Peter Kreitmeir.

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Selected works

Sinfonia drammatica (Symphony No. 1) (1936) 16’ 2(I,II=picc).2.bcl.2.2—4.2.2.0— timp(=cym)—strings

Piano No. 1 (1948) 15’ 2(I,II=picc).2.2.2—3.2.2.0— timp.perc(1):glsp—strings

Ballade um Pandora (1957) 40’ 2.2.corA.3(III=Dcl).bcl.2.1— 4.2.3.1—timp.perc(3)—harp— pft—cel/glsp—strings

Rhythmophonie (1966/67) Manuscript by the composer 2(I,II=picc).2.2.2—4.2.3.1— timp.perc(3)—harp—strings sively under the motto ‘Sudeten German In 2021, editorial analysis and publica- Composers.’ Additions such as ‘of Jew- tion of Hans Winterberg’s compositional Dort und hier (1937) 17’ ish origin’ or anything similar that could estate began as a collaboration between for soprano and piano trio serve as an indication of Jewish origin Boosey & Hawkes, Winterberg’s grand- Text: Franz Werfel may not be used.” son Peter Kreitmeir, and the Exilarte Center at the University of Music and Eight Songs (1971) 25’ Without the efforts of Hans Winterberg’s Performing Arts Vienna. A number of for soprano, baritone and piano grandson Peter Kreitmeir, Ruth Winter- chamber-music works are already avail- Text: Luise-M. Pfeifer-Winterberg berg’s son, who found his grandfather’s able in new editions. The British pia- & Roderich Menzel trail only in 2011, Hans Winterberg’s lega- nist Jonathan Powell is overseeing the cy would still be under lock and key. Kreit- source-critical edition of the four piano Suite (1959) 19’ meir initially contacted American lawyer . for 4 winds and cembalo / piano Randol Schoenberg, the grandson of both Arnold Schoenberg and Erich Zeisl, and a In June 2021, the Radio Sympho- Suite Theresienstadt (1944) 8’ figure known for the restitution of Gustav ny Orchestra will record the first CD of for piano Klimt’s paintings to Maria Altmann. The Winterberg’s orchestral works, conduct- lawyer forwarded the contract to Michael ed by Johannes Kalitzke. The program 7 Neo-Impressionistic Pieces in Haas (the author of this article), with the includes the 1st Symphony, the orchestra 12 Tones (1973) 18’ note “I think this is something for your work Rhythmophony, and the 1st Piano for piano blog.” When the scan of the contract with Concerto, to be performed with Jonathan the SMI was published on the Forbidden Powell. The English label Toccata Clas- Further information at: Music blog, German journalists began sics has already released two dedicated [email protected] asking questions, which resulted in the productions of Winterberg’s chamber embargo being immediately lifted. At that music and piano works. The label is also time Peter Kreitmeir granted permission preparing the release of “Piano Mu- to the Exilarte Center at the University of sic, Volume Two” on CD, performed by The Exilarte Centre at the Univer­ Music and Performing Arts Vienna to con- Brigitte Helbig, while the Prague label sity of Music and Performing Arts duct further work on the estate. ArcoDiva will release the first record- Vienna is dedicated to the many ing of songs, with Czech soprano Irena artists who were persecuted and Had Winterberg not been discovered, the Troupová.  ostracised during the “Third Reich”. Nazi occupiers’ catastrophic orgy of mur- The processing of the estates serves der would have left not a single significant Michael Haas is a producer, musicologist, to rediscover a lost cultural heritage survivor of that generation of Czech mu- journalist and staff member at the Exilarte and to pass it on to future genera- sicians, aside from Martinů. With Winter- Research Center in Vienna. He initiated and tions through concerts, exhibitions, berg, at least one outstanding represen- produced the “Entartete Musik” (“Degenerate seminars and publications, as well tative of this important chapter of Central Music”) series of recordings on the DECCA as the preparation of European music history, and of the fruitful record label. His book, Forbidden Music – academic teaching Czech-German-Jewish symbiosis, has re- The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis concepts. turned. was published in 2013 by Yale University Press. exilarte.org

2) Ibid. (Translation: Barbara Serfozo) A bbildungen: W ikimedia Commons

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