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Nico Muhly, Hans Krasa's Brundibar, Hans Gal - Music Behind Barbed Wire

Tom Service talks to the American composer Nico Muhly, visits rehearsals for a new production of Hans Krasa's opera Brundibar and looks at the diary of Jewish composer Hans Gal who was interned in an 'alien enemy' camp in Britain after fleeing Germany during the war.

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45 minutes

Chapters

  • NICO MUHLY

    Duration: 15:37

  • HANS KRASA'S BRUNDIBAR

    Duration: 12:45

  • HANS GAL - MUSIC BEHIND BARBED WIRE

    Duration: 14:24

NICO MUHLY

NICO MUHLY
According to New York Magazine the composer Nico Muhly is β€œknown to some as Philip Glass’s protΓ©gΓ©e, to others as the guy who helps make BjΓΆrk and Rufus Wainwright sound better, and to most as one of the next great hopes for the future of classical music.’ Muhly talks to Tom Service about his dislike of β€œgenres” and pigeon-holing of musicians, the three principles his new works must have and the musicians and composers of the future. Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β Β 
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HANS KRASA'S BRUNDIBAR

HANS KRASA'S BRUNDIBAR
The composer Hans Krasa died in Auschwitz in 1944. The previous year his children’s opera Brundibar had been performed in the Czech concentration camp Terezin fifty-five times and was even filmed by the Nazis for propaganda - an extract of which can be heard in this programme. Tom visits rehearsals for a new production of Brundibar which is about to open at the Southbank Centre before touring the UK and talks to Ela Weissberger (now 84 and living in New York) who sang the role of the Cat in the performances in Terezin – one of the last remaining members of the original cast.

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HANS GAL - MUSIC BEHIND BARBED WIRE

HANS GAL - MUSIC BEHIND BARBED WIRE
The Austrian-born composer Hans Gal was one of many Jewish refugees who fled to Britain from Hitler’s Third Reich only to find themselves interned as β€œenemy aliens”. Gal spent five months over the summer of 1940 in internment camps and kept a diary during this captivity – a vivid account of personal survival and creativity. This diary has just been translated into English and published for the first time. Tom talks to Gal’s daughter Eva Fox-Gal who worked on the translation and to the writer and record producer Michael Haas about the composer’s life and music in Austria and the UK.

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Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Tom Service
Interviewed Guest Nico Muhly

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