One thing anti-Semites never seem to understand. When they drive Jews out of one place, another place that takes the Jews in often greatly benefits as a result.
This happened with the American movie industry during the pre-World War II/pre-Holocaust 1930s. Nazi German anti-Semitism drove numerous talented Jews to the United States, among them a group of composers who became “responsible for creating the Hollywood sound.”
That was how John DeMain, conductor of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, described this group’s achievement in a conversation with The Chronicle on Feb. 13.
DeMain and the orchestra will be celebrating some of these composers with concerts combining their symphonic and their movie music plus some other events on March 6-8.
DeMain told The Chronicle that he was inspired to do this program because of his guest soloist, British violinist Daniel Hope. DeMain said he wanted to bring Hope to Madison for a long time because “he’s an international star and he’s never played here.”
But Hope has an adventurous mind as well. In 2014, he released an album called “Escape to Paradise: The Hollywood Album,” recording arrangements of themes from movie scores by immigrant Jewish composers who had gone to Hollywood.
Hope offered DeMain the violin concerto by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957). This Jewish composer’s early concert music had been hailed by such masters as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss; but Korngold had to flee to the U.S. where he became famous for such movie scores as “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and “Captain Blood.”
And that gave DeMain a “wonderful idea” — to take the movie and concert music of Korngold and some others, put them on the same concert and “see what kind of similarities there might be in the styles and how they may have evolved.”
One of the things that came out of the plans for DeMain, a widely respected conductor who has led the Madison orchestra for 20 years, was the quality of all the music, concert and movie.
Besides Korngold’s violin concerto — a work that is “one of the great and beautiful” examples of its kind, DeMain said — there will be a suite from Korngold’s score for “Captain Blood.”
The concert will also feature “Sinfonietta for Strings and Tympani” — “a delightful work,” said DeMain — by Franz Waxman (1906-1967) and “Ride of the Cossacks” from his score for “Taras Bulba.”
And DeMain said pieces by Miklos Rozsa (1907-1995) will be “a revelation to the audience.” Rozsa’s “Theme, Variations and Finale” “is just a spectacular orchestral work,” and it will be paired with famous music he wrote for the films “Ben Hur” and “Spellbound.”
“I think what we have to realize” about these composers “is how enormously skilled they were and how their craft was so fantastic,” DeMain said.
And they didn’t write “cheap music” when they wrote their film scores, but composed works that “were a vital part of the movie” and were “significant, integral compositions in their own right,” DeMain said.
The concerts will take place Friday, March 6, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 7, 8 p.m.; and Sunday, March 8, 2 p.m., all in Overture Hall, 201 State St.
About one hour before all of them, there will be a pre-concert talk by Teryl Dobbs, associate professor of music education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
On March 7, 1;30 p.m., at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State St., the orchestra will present a symposium about the composers featuring Hope, Dobbs and Pamela Potter, UW-Madison professor of German and music.
The orchestra will also feature a “Magic of the Music Lunch” on March 6, 11:40 a.m., at the Blackhawk Country Club, 3606 Blackhawk Dr., at which participants can meet Hope and hear him talk about the music.
For reservations and more information, contact the orchestra, 608-258-4141, or visit MadisonSymphony.org.
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