LIFESTYLE & CULTURE
A night celebrating the ‘inextinguishable’ nature
of a symphony
MALA BLOMQUIST | MANAGING EDITOR
O n Jan. 22, MusicaNova Orchestra is
teaming up with the ASU Center for
Jewish Studies, with support by a grant
from the Center for Jewish Philanthropy
of Greater Phoenix, to present “Winter
Journey and the Inextinguishable
Symphony” at the Scottsdale Center
for the Performing Arts. The evening
features the little-known history of Jewish
musicians in 1930s Germany through a
unique presentation of music and film.

Carl Nielsen’s “Inextinguishable
Symphony” is preceded by a screening
of the 2019 film by Danish filmmaker
Anders Ostergaard, “Winter Journey.”
The film, based on Martin Goldsmith's
book, “The Inextinguishable Symphony:
A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi
Germany,” tells the story of his parents
who played in the Jüdische Kulturbund,
(Jewish Cultural Association), an
ensemble sanctioned by the Nazis that
served as a propaganda tool, employing
Jewish artists who had been fired from
their previous positions.

Goldsmith is director of classical music
programming at SiriusXM Satellite Radio
in Washington, D.C. and formerly the
host of “Performance Today,” National
SENIORS FATHER
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
trained to cure. However, with a serious
illness, aggressive treatment at the end
of life can be harder on the patient than
the disease itself. Dad had hit that tipping
point and said in no uncertain terms, “I
never want to go back to the hospital
again.” Noodles had a very clear understanding
of hospice. His exposure to hospice was
directly related to having a son in the senior
care space. Noodles was charismatic and so
lovable; there were many “take your dad
to work” opportunities, and thus special
moments to learn about topics such as
hospice in depth. When his primary care
physician initiated the conversation, it
did not elicit misperceptions of what
hospice is all about. Unfortunately, most
people associate hospice only with dying
— instead of living more fully during the
time that remains. Noodles was ready to
go from curative care to comfort care.

One of the biggest misperceptions
is that hospice care becomes the last
resort when “nothing else can be done.”
Hospice care doesn’t mean that treatment
stops. It means the types of treatment
and goals of care change to things like
14 JANUARY 6, 2023
Rudolf Schwarz was conductor of the Berlin Kulturbund Orchestra until 1941, when the Nazis imprisoned him.

COURTESY OF THE JÜDISCHE KULTURBUND PROJECT
Public Radio’s daily classical music
program. After the concert, he will be
on hand for a Q&A with the audience.

Nielsen, a Danish composer, wrote his
Symphony No. 4 in 1916, during the
First World War. At the beginning of the
score he wrote, “Music is life, and like it,
inextinguishable.” “His belief was that even if somehow
mankind were crazy enough to destroy
itself, life would return to the earth in
some form or other,” said Goldsmith.

“So ultimately the symphony is a very
optimistic and thrilling piece of music.”
Warren Cohen, MusicaNova’s artistic
director said he has been wanting to
do this piece for 40 years. In fact,
he was having a conversation about
reaching out to Goldsmith when he called
MusicaNova suggesting they perform the
“Inextinguishable Symphony.”
managing pain and other symptoms
while helping patients reach their goals
in the time that’s left. The most common
statement made by families who chose
hospice for their loved one is, “We wish
we had known about it or made the
decision to go on hospice sooner.”
Another misperception is that hospice
is a place. Hospice is not a place; it is
a concept and that concept is centered
around comfort. Over 98% of hospice is
delivered in the home. It’s where most
people want to be and it is a place where
people are comfortable. Receiving care
in the comfort of your own home makes
perfect sense.

In addition to misperceptions about
what hospice can do, the criteria for
receiving hospice care can create obstacles.

To be eligible for hospice, the rules of
Medicare and most health insurance
providers say that doctors must predict a
that a patient has six months or less to live.

Accurately predicting life expectancy can
be a challenge, even for the most skilled
physicians. Another obstacle in engaging hospice is
the patient must agree to give up curative
treatments. I often see that when the
patient is ready to move from curative
care to comfort care, their family may
influence them to not “give up.”
From left, Bob Roth, Sheldon Roth and Matthew Fehling, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau
who presented Bob with the BBB’s Torch Award for Business Ethics in 2018.

COURTESY OF BOB ROTH
About two-thirds of patients are willing
to undergo therapies they don’t want
if that is what their loved ones want,
according to Dr. Susan Block, chief of
psychosocial oncology and palliative
care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in
Boston, Massachusetts.

If families or physicians aren’t sure
whether hospice care is appropriate,
consider getting an assessment from a
hospice provider with whom you can
discuss your loved one’s condition, the
challenges of living with an illness and
the benefits of hospice.

JEWISH NEWS
Our family was 100% on Team Noodles.

That support was easy to give because
Dad was dictating exactly what he wanted
because he was informed.

I miss you, Dad. Thank you for making
the decision to choose comfort. We will
cherish the memories we made in the
final weeks and days we had together,
especially the late-night excursion to get
ice cream just a few days before we said
our final goodbyes. JN
Bob Roth is the managing partner of Cypress
HomeCare Solutions.

JEWISHAZ.COM



LIFESTYLE & CULTURE
MusicaNova is celebrating its 20th
season in 2023 and it remains “dedicated
to bringing new, unjustly neglected and
familiar music played in new ways,”
according to its mission statement.

“The very first complete concert we
did was a concert of music that had
been suppressed by the Nazis,” said
Cohen. “This concert, and doing this
with Martin, is central to the mission of
the orchestra because we have done so
much music that has been suppressed by
the Nazis. Now, in this case, the music
was not suppressed by the Nazis, but
was directly related to their suppression.

It was part of their propaganda Jewish
orchestra they had created.”
Cohen explained that, in an attempt
to bring art under their control, the
Nazis would label any music written by
Jews as “degenerate music.” This label
was also given to any music with other
“degenerate characteristics” such as a
relationship to jazz, or to non-heroic
presentations of Aryan culture.

“It’s a wonderful thing for us to bring
into our 20th anniversary season, because
it reflects on the history of the orchestra,”
said Cohen.

Goldsmith said he chose the title
“The Inextinguishable Symphony”
for his book because the Kulturbund
orchestra rehearsed Nielsen’s symphony
for a performance at the end of 1941.

However, the Nazis disbanded the
Kulturbund in September of ’41, so the
performance never actually took place.

Growing up, Goldsmith said that
his father, George (nee Gunther
Goldschmidt), and his mother, Rosemarie,
never spoke about the past and when his
brother questioned why they didn’t have
grandparents or aunts and uncles, like
other kids their age, his father’s response
was, “They died in the war.”
In 1946, Rosemarie was hired to play
the viola in the St. Louis Symphony.

George sold furniture in a department
store and stopped playing the flute.

“It’s my belief that he gave up his life
as a musician as an act of penance,” said
Goldsmith. “Because he had failed to save
his family. His father, mother, younger
brother and sister were all murdered by
the Nazis — either in Auschwitz or in a
forest outside Riga, Latvia. Even though
there is really very little he could have
practically done, he felt that he didn’t
do enough.”
Rosemarie then played in the Cleveland
Orchestra from 1967 to 1981. When the
orchestra traveled to perform in Tucson,
she found the place she wanted to retire.

“She and my father moved to Tucson in
1981,” said Goldsmith. “My mother died
in ’84 and my father stayed there for the
next 20 years or so before he developed
Alzheimer’s and I brought him back east
to stay near me in a facility where he died
in 2009, at the age of 95.”
For his book, Goldsmith said he had to
do the bulk of research about Kulturbund
on his own, although he did have several
conversations with his father about the
past and those became the bulk of the
content of the film, “Winter Journey,”
where the late Bruno Ganz plays his
father. “I worked with the director, Anders
Ostergaard, and I wrote the script and
I appear throughout the film — though
never on camera,” he said. “Which I guess
is appropriate for a radio guy.”
Goldsmith met Ganz in Tucson during
filming in a neighborhood near where his
parents lived. He expected Ganz to pull
him aside and question him about his
father’s habits and mannerisms. Instead,
Ganz never asked him a thing.

“He created his character, George
Goldsmith, my father, completely out of
the script and his own genius and I must
say, his performance is just stunning,”
said Goldsmith. “There are times when
I forget that I’m looking at Bruno Ganz
and I think I’m looking at my father.”
The concert will also feature “Finlandia”
by composer Jean Sibelius. “It was on the
very last program Kulturbund gave before
it was dissolved in 1941,” said Goldsmith.

“So, there’s a historical connection to
the evening and Warren has put together
a marvelous choir to accompany his
orchestra.” He added that this program has
only been performed once before. In
February 2022, the Buffalo Philharmonic
Orchestra presented the film, a discussion
and Nielsen’s symphony — but not
“Finlandia.” “I’m especially looking
forward to it because Finlandia is one of
my favorite pieces and the fact that it was
on the very last Kulturbund program is an
added bonus,” said Goldsmith.

“It’s a remarkable opportunity for our
community to get in touch with it in a
way where you’re seeing the film and also
the context of the film — which I think
is kind of a wonderful way to pull it all
together.” Goldsmith said that if his father were
alive to see the concert he would be
overwhelmed. “He was reticent to talk about the
past. So, to see himself on the screen
depicted marvelously by Bruno Ganz,
not to mention the orchestral connection
with Nielsen and Sibelius, I think, for
once in his life, he would be rendered
speechless.” JN
Fo r m o re i n fo r m at i o n , v i s i t s co t t s d a l e
performingarts.org. Jewish News is published by the Jewish Community
Foundation of Greater Phoenix, a component of the
Center for Jewish Philanthropy of Greater Phoenix.

TOSCA January 20, 21 & 22, 2023
Symphony Hall
2022/23 Season T H E A R T O F O P E R A
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