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
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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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