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Feb. 8, 2013 Poignantly beautiful musicCYNTHIA RAMSAYAmong the 2,300 “enemy aliens” interned in England and then deported to – and interned in – Canada in 1940 was Fritz Grundland, or Freddy Grant, as he became known. Despite his treatment, Grant, who became a naturalized Canadian in 1945, wrote several patriotic songs. One of his most famous melodies, written for his fellow internees, “morphed into a popular wartime morale booster,” noted Prof. Suzanne Snizek in an interview with the Jewish Independent about the upcoming Chutzpah! Festival presentation Music in Internment. Co-presented with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre on Sunday, Feb. 24, 7 p.m., at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre, Music in Internment will not only highlight some of Snizek’s research, but will include a live performance of some of the music itself. Snizek, who is also a renowned flutist, will be joined by classical violinists Mark Lupin and Angela Cavadas, violist Sarah Kwok, cellist Stefan Hintersteininger, pianist Charlotte Hale, clarinetist Connie Gitlin and actor/vocalist Stephen Aberle. In addition to a song written by Grant, the concert portion of the evening will feature Austrian Jewish composer Hans Gál’s The Huyton Suite and selections from his What a Life! as well as German Jewish composer Franz Reizenstein’s Partita. (Gál and Reizenstein were both interned in England; Gál in Huyton and then Isle of Man, Reizenstein on Isle of Man.) “Hans Gál’s career spanned some 90 years,” explained Snizek, whose academic writings include a chapter in Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire (Routledge Studies in Heritage, 2012). “His style was very consistent and strongly influenced by Brahms, but also always uniquely his own. His music was very well known in the 1920s, especially in Germany and Austria. He was considered a ‘famous composer’ of that era. In fact, the other internees sometimes referred to him (in their internment diaries) as simply: ‘the famous composer.’ “Although Gál had an incredibly difficult life overall, he managed to continue to compose throughout the difficult periods. Not only was he dismissed from his post at the Mainz Conservatory (because he was Jewish), but he also had to flee Vienna after the so-called ‘Anschluss.’ His sister and a beloved Aunt Jenny (who was an opera singer under a young Richard Strauss) committed suicide to avoid being taken to a concentration camp. Gál himself was conscripted into the Austrian army in the First World War, was interned by the British in 1940 and struggled to regain his career momentum after having to restart his career three times: first, when he had to leave Germany, the second when he had to leave Vienna and then, yet again, after being released from internment. Evidently, the mounting pressure and complete instability for the entire family was too much for his youngest son, Peter, and Peter would also commit suicide during this time period.” Gál composed The Huyton Suite and What a Life! during his internment (May to September 1940). These “are only two works out of a long lifetime of composition,” stressed Snizek. “However, having said that, the Huyton Suite trio is rather representative of his small-scale chamber music works: very well crafted, utterly tonal pieces with a harmonic language which can still be a bit surprising at times. He also tended to write in a very contrapuntal manner. In other words, there are multiple melodic ideas going at the same time, but they come across as fitting together naturally. I would describe his music as accessible while still being sophisticated. “The revue What a Life! is unusual for Gál. The style is lighter and more ‘popular’ than the bulk of his music, which is ‘serious.’ This revue is unique for Gál because it served a special function of entertaining the internees in the British camps.” Grant’s song (“You’ll Get Used to It”) “was also originally written for the internees themselves, with understandably acerbic, somewhat sarcastic lyrics,” explained Snizek. “For example, one line, in this original version, states: ‘It serves you right, you so-and-so, why weren’t you naturalized Eskimo!’ The bitterly ironic sentiment behind this statement lies in the fact that these men were interned for their identity as ‘enemy aliens,’ not for any clear cut individual risk posed to anyone. The attitude towards the enemy aliens was often fairly unsympathetic, and the newspapers of the day were at times rather fairly nasty. “The really interesting thing about this song is that it later morphed into a popular wartime morale booster. In other words, the same melody is recycled, but it was paired with very different words. This is a very old phenomenon for the musical world, nothing unusual about that in itself, but the particular way in which this development unfolded is especially ironic.” About Reizenstein, Snizek explained that he “had studied with the famous German composer Paul Hindemith at the Berlin Musikhochschule, and then later with Ralph Vaughn Williams in London at the Royal Academy of Music. The influence of both of these musical styles is quite clearly imprinted on Reizenstein’s music. Reizenstein, like Gál, was creatively productive even during internment. Reizenstein, in addition to being a composer, was also a virtuosic pianist who gave frequent and ultra-ambitious concerts while he was interned.” In doing her research, Snizek said, “There emerged a subtle but persistent element of teshuvah in the process of uncovering this history. I had not expected this, but it was wonderful. One woman, for example, had said she had never understood her grandfather. However, in reading his internment diary, which surfaced just about the same time I located her, she said she began to understand why he was the way he was, what sort of personal history of trauma he had endured, how difficult his life had been. “Another man had never known his grandfather at all: for many complicated reasons, the family had completely splintered, immediately postwar. And this total break had carried on to 2010. My research really became personally important to him, since it seemed to be the only connection he had to the man who had died before he was able to pursue his own relationship with him. It seemed to help him make an important, healing connection to his past. Understanding a family history is a way of understanding oneself.” Snizek, who received her undergraduate degree in flute performance at the University of Indiana-Bloomington, started her musical journey as a pianist at age four. However, she shared, “I was a dismal failure at piano, since basically I wanted to go outside to play instead of practising. Something about the flute appealed to me, so when I reached Grade 4, and I had the opportunity to take up the flute, I jumped at the chance. I took to it immediately, and excelled at it. I loved to play the flute. I would rush home from school to practise, literally starting even before taking off my coat. My parents never had to remind or pressure me to practise; it was totally my own thing, which I did for the love of it.” She still performs often, in addition to teaching both private students and at the University of Victoria, where she is a visiting assistant professor. After moving to British Columbia, Snizek taught flute at Trinity Western University and Douglas College Community Music School, and received her doctor of musical arts (DMA) in flute from the University of British Columbia in 2011. Of her decision to move here, she said, “My neighbor who came to Canada in the ’60s says she came to Canada because ‘she and Nixon had an argument.’ I guess it is fair to say that I came to Canada because Bush and I had an argument. “I chose Vancouver because of the overall beauty of the region, the mild climate, the progressive attitude, that sort of thing. Conveniently enough, UBC-Vancouver was one of the few places in Canada that offered the DMA degree program. I was formerly a senior lecturer at the University of the Arts (in Philadelphia), so it was a rather odd feeling, going back to being a student after being a professional performer for so many years. But the flute professor at UBC, Lorna McGhee, was really great about my situation, and was very supportive.” The day after she successfully passed her final oral defence, Snizek was interviewed for the position at UVic. “It was just a stroke of luck that the position opened up just as I finished the degree,” she said, noting that the previous flute professor had just retired after about 30 years. “Not many full-time positions in this field, so I was just extremely fortunate that things worked out in this regard.” In her second year at UVic, Snizek said she feels creatively challenged and supported in her musical and scholarly work there. About the work she will share at Chutzpah!, she said, “No matter how many times I hear this music. I am moved by the contrast between the music’s beauty, and the bleak reality of the internment. I have played these works many times, but it is still striking to me how optimistic the Huyton Suite trio is, for example, despite what Gál was personally going through at that time. “There is also a moment in that trio which is just so musically poignant, that it is almost difficult to play it. Perhaps one drawback to being any sort of wind player (or vocalist, for that matter) is that one cannot allow the emotional impact, on a personal level, to derail the sound that you are trying to create. To perform these or any musical works well requires a bit of intentional ‘emotional equanimity.’ “Having said that, though, I must admit that the first time I tried to play through this trio was interesting, because I literally had to stop playing. It was a bit overwhelming for me, since I connected so deeply to this human being’s experience, having read his diary, the diaries of other internees, the firsthand reports made by the relief workers in the camps, and then later having met his surviving family in the U.K., and so on.” Snizek added, “while this music is indeed reflective of the internment and important on a historical level, it is also just high-quality music. I hope that it prompts listeners to discover the other works by these composers.” More Chutzpah! music In addition to Music in Internment, the Chutzpah! Festival features:
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