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Pavel Haas (1899-1944), a pupil of Jánacek. He continued to compose whilt in Terezín, until he was sent to Auschwitz and his death.
Rudolf Karel (1880-1945). He was the last student of Dvorák, dying of dysentry in Terenzín shortly before liberation.
Gideon Klein (1919-45)
Hans Krása (1899-1944), continued to compose in the camp, producing an opera Brundibár (The Bumble Bee) which had several performances there, arranged by a group of Jewish inmates. Brundibár still receives performances today.
Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944), pupil of both Hába & Schönberg. He too composed in Terezín, writing a one-act opera, Der Kaiser von Atlantis.
Jehan Ariste Alain (1911-1940) French organist, composer for organ and organ builder,
the son of another organist Albert Alain, and brother of the illustrious organist, Marie-Claire Alain.
He became a dispatch rider in the the French Army.
On June 20, 1940, he was assigned to reconnoitre the German advance and encountered a group of German soldiers.
He abandoned his motorcycle and engaged the enemy, killing sixteen before being killed himself.
He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre for his bravery.
The British composers George Butterworth (1885-1916) and
Cecil Coles perished, fighting in the First World War,
and Walter Leigh (1905-1942) was killed in action near Tobruk in WW II.
The English composer and music critic Alfred Julius Becher,
born in Manchester in 1803, studied in Germany before moving to Vienna in 1841.
In those politically turbulent times he began publishing a revolutionary paper Der Radikale,
in 1848 he was arrested and shot for treason, thus becoming a musical martyr!
Harant z Polzic a Bedruzic (Harant of Polzice and Bedruzice)
1564-1621, studied at the court of Archduke Ferdinand II at Innsbruck and worked as valet to to the Emperor Rudolf II.
He wrote a capella works, of which just a few survive. He was beheaded as the leader of an uprising.
Ljewitsch “Leo” Borchardt (1899-1945) a Russian conductor,
was for almost three months, musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic.
In May 1945, just 2˝ weeks after Germany’s unconditional surrender, he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a concert with public success.
One week later he was appointed musical director of the orchestra replacing Furtwängler, who was in exile in Switzerland.
Borchardt’s anti-Nazi credentials and command of the Russian language enabled him to enjoy a close relationship with the occupiers.
Borchardt was killed on 23 August 1945 when his British driver misinterpreted an American sentry’s signal to stop
and the soldier shot him dead at Checkpoint Charlie.
Sergiu Celibidache was named as principal conductor of the Berlin PO in 1946.
Bombs exploding in the streets of London were responsible for the deaths of
both Al Bowlly
and the British Guiana born Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson.
Jakob Herschel was strangled on the battle-field near Hanover in 1893.
For more on Jakob, his noted brother William and their sister Caroline,
go to Musical Oddities page.
Toivo Kuula a Finnish composer (1883-1918) was shot to death
during a street fight in the aftermath of the Finnish civil war.
French composer, Albéric Magnard (1865-1914), fired on some advancing German troops, in the first war.
They retaliated, burning his house to the ground, with him in it, along with many of his scores.
This happened on September 3, 1914. The War had just begun, Germany declaring war against France on August 3.
Having heard some of Magnard's surviving music,
we could suggest, rather cruelly, that an unintentional service to music was performed.
Olivier Messian survived his 2 years
in prison camp in Görliz in Silesia.
There he composed and performed his Quatuor pour le fin de temps, a virtuoso chamber work.
Alessandro Poglietti, the court organist in Vienna,
was killed by the Turks in July 1683 in the siege of Vienna.
The Czech composer and pianist Erwin Schulhoff, a Jew,
(1894-1942), died in the concentration camp Wülzburg in Bavaria.
Josef Schmidt (1904-1942) was a tenor & actor with a particularly sweet lyric tenor voice.
Almost a midget, height of just 147cm., his chances on the stage in opera were limited.
When the war broke out he was caught in France by the German invasion.
Being of Jewush extraction, he attempted to escape to the United States but failed and headed for Switzerland,
where he was interned in a refugee camp.
Already in frail health, the harsh camp life and lack of medical care brought about a fatal heart attack one month later in November 1942.
He was only 38 years old.
The Amsterdam-born composer Leo Smit, born in 1900,
died in a concentration camp, somewhere in Poland, in 1943 or ’44.
Serbian composer Vojislav Vučković (1910-1942)
was in the resistance movement during the German occupation.
He was killed on the street by the German Police on December 25, 1942.
Anton von Webern was shot and killed by an American soldier on the evening of September 15 1945,
when he stepped outside his son-in-law’s house to smoke a cigarette,
evidence of the Surgeon General’s warning that smoking can endanger your health.
GUNS
Boogie-woogie jazz pianist, Clarence ‘Pinetop’ Smith recorded his influential Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie, one of the first boogie woogie style recordings to make a hit in 1928. Pine Top talks over the recording, telling how to dance to the number. He said he originated the number at a house-rent party in Saint Louis, Missouri. In 1929, Pinetop was killed by a stray bullet when a fight broke out in a Chicago dance-hall. By all accounts, he was an innocent bystander.
German violinist and composer Adolf Kottlitz (1820-1860)
was killed while hunting in Uralsk, Russia.
As the whole world knows, John Lennon was fatally shot by a mentally ill fan in 1980.
Tupac Shakur was murdered in drive-by shooting in 1996.
Carlos Chávez and Georges Onslow were much luckier!
See the Near Misses page.