The Wiener Library’s new exhibition ‘Hans Gál – Music in Exile’ explores the life and music of the Austrian-British composer Hans Gál, who was forced to emigrate from Vienna to Britain in 1938 as a result of Nazi persecution of Jewish musicians. Gál was arguably the last major composer in the Germanic tradition of classicism that ran directly from Bach through Beethoven to Brahms. Gál’s blossoming career was, however, dramatically interrupted by Hitler’s early antisemitic purges of the German music world. This exhibition explores the aspects of Gál’s life and music that were irretrievably cut off by his exile, and the elements that survived and thrived against the odds.
‘Hans Gál: Music in Exile’ is produced by The Wiener Library and the University of Music and Drama (Rostock) with the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum, Exilarte Austrian Contact Point for Exiled Music, the Centre for Ostracised Music (Rostock) and the Royal College of Music. It forms part of an EU-funded project co-ordinated by Jeunesses Musicales Mecklenberg-Vorpommern on European Strategies for Holocaust Remembrance (ESTHER).
Admission is free.
