Ignatz Waghalter was a Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

-German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

.

Early years

Waghalter was born into a poor but musically-accomplished Jewish family in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

. His eldest brother, Henryk Waghalter (1869-1961), became a renowned cellist at the Warsaw Conservatory. Wladyslaw (1885-1940), the youngest Waghalter brother, became a noted violinist. Ignatz Waghalter made his way to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 at the age of 17 where he first studied with Philipp Scharwenka

Philipp Scharwenka

Ludwig Philipp Scharwenka was a German composer and teacher of music. He was the older brother of Xaver Scharwenka.- Early training :...

. Waghalter came to the attention of Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...

, the great violinist and close friend of Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

. With the support of Joachim, Waghalter was admitted into the Berlin Akademie der Künste

Akademie der Künste

The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...

, where he studied composition and conducting under the direction of Friedrich Gernsheim

Friedrich Gernsheim

Friedrich Gernsheim was a German composer, conductor and pianist.Gernsheim was born in Worms. He was given his first musical training at home under his mother's care, then starting from the age of seven under Worms' musical director, Louis Liebe, a former pupil of Louis Spohr...

. Waghalter’s early chamber music revealed an intense melodic imagination that was to remain a distinctive characteristic of his compositional work. An early String Quartet in D Major, Opus 3, was highly praised by Joachim. Waghalter’s Sonata for Violin and Pianoforte in F Minor, Opus 5, received the prestigious Mendelssohn-Preis

Mendelssohn Scholarship

The Mendelssohn Scholarship refers to two scholarships awarded in Germany and in the United Kingdom. Both commemorate the composer, Felix Mendelssohn, and are awarded to promising young musicians to enable them to continue their development.-History:...

 in 1902, when the composer was only 21.

In 1907 Waghalter secured a post as conductor at the Komische Oper in Berlin, assisting Arthur Nikisch

Arthur Nikisch

Arthur Nikisch ; 12 October 185523 January 1922) was a Hungarian conductor who performed internationally, holding posts in Boston, London and - most importantly - Berlin. He was considered an outstanding interpreter of the music of Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Liszt...

, where his reputation grew rapidly. This was followed by a brief tenure at the Grillo-Theater, the Stadttheater in Essen

Essen

- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...

 (1911–12). Waghalter’s appointment as principal conductor at the new Deutsche Opernhaus in Berlin established his position as a major figure in German music. The house was inaugurated under Waghalter’s direction on 7 November 1912 with a performance of Fidelio

Fidelio

Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...

. Waghalter championed the music of Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...

, whose operas had previously failed to win public acceptance in Germany. The first performance of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West

La fanciulla del West

La fanciulla del West is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Its highly-publicised premiere occurred in New York City in 1910...

in Germany was conducted by Waghalter in March 1913 at the Deutsche Opernhaus. Its triumphant reception secured for Puccini's operas a permanent place in the repertoires of Germany's opera houses. Waghalter also conducted the German debut performances of Tosca

Tosca

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...

 and La Bohème

La bohème

La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...

, and also of Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

' second symphony

A London Symphony

A London Symphony is the second symphony composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The work is sometimes referred to as the Symphony No. 2, though it was not designated as such by the composer...

 in 1923.

Three of Waghalter’s own operas received their premier at the Deutsche Opernhaus: Mandragola, based on a Renaissance comedy by Machiavelli, in January 1914, which was booked for a European tour but was abandoned with the outbreak of the First World War; Jugend, based on the tragic realistic work by the German dramatist Max Halbe, in February 1917; and Sataniel, inspired by a Polish fantasy tale, in May 1923. The fervent melodicism of these works marked Waghalter as among the most lyrical of German operatic composers in the pre-1933 era.

Later years

Waghalter left the Deutsche Opernhaus in 1923. Traveling to the United States, he succeeded Joseph Stransky as musical director of the New York State Symphony

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, a post that he held during the 1925 season. Deeply attached to the cultural life of Berlin, Waghalter turned down an offer to remain at the State Symphony and returned to Germany. He assumed the position of Generalmusikmeister of UFA, the largest film production company in Germany. In this capacity, Waghalter composed the original musical score for one of the most extraordinary German films of the Weimar era, Hann Walter Kornblum's Wunder der Schöpfung. This pathbreaking film, which premiered in Berlin in September 1925, attempted to present in a popular cinematic form the greatest discoveries of modern astronomy. Waghalter's music was described by one critic as a "sensation.".

Waghalter composed several operettas, and was active as a guest conductor. Waghalter was appointed musical director at the National Opera in Riga, Latvia, for the 1931-32 season. Shortly after his return to Berlin, the Nazis came to power. In 1934 Waghalter went into exile, moving first to Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 and then to Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, where he composed his last opera, Ahasaverus und Esther. Several weeks before the Nazis entered Austria

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

, Waghalter and his wife fled to the United States.

Shortly after arriving in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Waghalter initiated a campaign to establish a classical orchestra of African-American musicians. He secured the interest and support of militant New York trade unions, the noted African-American musician Alfred Jack Thomas, and such prominent representatives of the Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...

 as James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his leadership within the NAACP, as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and...

. The orchestra performed publicly under Waghalter's direction in 1938. However, the project could not obtain sufficient funding to be sustained.

Though Waghalter appeared occasionally as a guest conductor, his opportunities were extremely limited, and he died in relative obscurity in New York on April 7, 1949 at the age of 68.

Even though Waghalter was one of many immensely gifted German and Central European musicians whose lives and careers were shattered by the Nazi catastrophe, the degree of his subsequent and protracted obscurity, when contrasted to the scale of Waghalter’s pre-1933 prominence, is striking. The reason for Waghalter’s fate may be explained to a large extent by the radical shift in musical aesthetics in the aftermath of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Waghalter did not experiment with atonality

Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...

, and his commitment to melodicism placed him well outside the precincts of the musical avant-garde. But more recent critical questioning of atonalism and a corresponding revival of interest in composers who worked in a melodic idiom have encouraged a reconsideration of Waghalter. The Deutsche Oper (successor of the Deutsche Opernhaus) staged a concert performance of Waghalter’s Jugend in 1989, and a new recording of his early chamber music was released in March 2006. In March 2011 Waghalter's Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra and Concerto for Violin and Orchestra were recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...

 in London, with conductor Alexander Walker and soloist Irmina Trynkos. Public release of the CD by Naxos Records

Naxos Records

Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...

 is expected in the spring of 2012. The emotional authenticity and force of Waghalter’s lyricism, combined with the high technical quality of his compositions, may be best appreciated as a distinctive expression of a lost musical culture whose destruction was among the tragic consequences of the barbarism unleashed by fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 in Europe.

Selected works

• String Quartet in D Major, Opus 3
• Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Minor, Opus 5
• Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 9
• Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 15
• Operas: Der Teufelsweg, Mandragola, Jugend and Sataniel
• Operettas: Der späte Gast, Wem gehört Helena, Bärbel, Lord Tommy, Der Weiberkrieg
• Piano Works: Zwölf Skizzen für Klavier, Opus 17, Drei Klavierstuecke Opus 8, Trois Morceaux, Opus 13
• Works for piano and violin: Idyll, Opus 14a, Gestaendnis, Opus 14b
• Several Song Cycles

Waghalter’s Autobiography, Aus dem Ghetto in die Freiheit, was published in Czechoslovakia in 1936.

External links

• Ignatz Waghalter Web Site
• http://www.knuckle.tv/clients/the-waghalter-project