Klarinet Archive - Posting 000613.txt from 1996/12

From: Josias Associates <josassoc@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: cl/vcl/pno wartime suggestion
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 01:12:01 -0500

On Sun, 22 Dec 1996, simon aldrich wrote:

> I am a clarinetist doing the Messaien Quartet for the End of Time on a
> concert in January and the producer was wondering if there is a 10- to
> 20-minute piece for clarinet, cello and piano by a Holocaust survivor or
> someone who suffered during the war. It could also be for the Messaien
> combination or violin, clarinet and piano. Thank-you in advance. Simon
> (simona@-----.org)
>

Simon,

In the notes accompanying his "Quartet" for clarinet, violin,
cello, and piano, composer Peter Schickele reports that he suffered
greatly as a child when his father denied him the right to listen to his
father's collection of Spike Jones records -- which might have accounted for
the son's irreverent attitude toward the composing of music. The Quartet,
which was probably not inspired by the war, is nevertheless a fine work
-- and a serious one at that.

Last summer I read through a remarkable quartet for clarinet, viola,
cello, and piano by German composer, Heinrich Kaminski. The cellist in
our group, who had lived in Germany through World War II, told us that
Kaminski had been a professor of music in Germany prior to the war and
that he was stripped of his academic credentials and appointments and
eventually wound up in a concentration camp. He said that, in recent years,
Kaminski's reputation had grown in Germany to the point that he (the cellist)
was surprised that Kaminski was still relatively unknown in the U.S. Grove
does not comment of Kaminski's whereabouts during the war years, but does
give his dates as being 1886-1946.

Connie

Conrad Josias
La Canada, California