Alfred Tokayer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alfred Tokayer (born March 21, 1900 in Koethen , German Reich ; † probably at the end of March 1943 in Sobibor concentration camp , Poland ) was a German composer and conductor .

Live and act

Tokayer came from a Jewish family in what is now Bistritz, Romania. His parents settled in Köthen in the 1890s, and it was here that Alfred Tokayer received his first music lessons. In 1919 he went to Frankfurt am Main and visited Dr. Hoch's Conservatory and continued his studies in philosophy and economics, which he had begun in Berlin the previous year. His music subjects were u. a. Piano, chamber music, orchestration and composition. In 1920 Tokayer went to Bremen and worked at the opera there. He stayed here until 1930 and worked as a conductor and voice trainer under the direction of Manfred Gurlitt . The works he conducted were mainly light pieces of music and operettas. In 1931 Alfred Tokayer moved to the Volksoper Berlin . Here he worked with Max Reinhardt , Oscar Strauss and the film composer Theo Mackeben , among others . Here, too, Alfred Tokayer remained connected to the light muse; as a voice trainer he coached Käthe Dorsch, among others .

The seizure of power in 1933 gradually meant the end of all artistic activity of Alfred Tokayer in the German Reich. On May 5, 1935, the German citizenship, which had only been acquired in 1919, was revoked, and after the father's business had been bankrupted by the Nazis at the end of 1935, Tokayer's parents emigrated to Yugoslavia, while Alfred Tokayer decided to move to France flee. At that time there was an icy mood there towards German-Jewish artists who had fled from Hitler since 1933. He found brief employment in London (as orchestrator and conductor) for the emigre film Robber's Symphony, which had just been shot, and worked as an arranger for the French film composer Maurice Thiriet . Tokayer was also involved in music broadcasts.

When war broke out in September 1939, Alfred Tokayer was considered an enemy alien in France and was temporarily interned in the corresponding camp in Sourioux near Vierzon. In December 1939 he joined the Foreign Legion and stayed there until March 1940. During this time, Tokay composed the Cantique de Sathonay . He was then sent to Sidi-Bel-Abbes in Algeria and later to Khenifra in Morocco. Here he was supposed to teach music at the Conservatory in Meknes and worked there again as a conductor (piece “Une Journee de mon Enfant”) for a local Moroccan radio station. In 1940 Tokayer returned to France, which had meanwhile been occupied by German troops, and settled near Limoges, where various of his colleagues had fled from Paris. He continued making music on site, gave concerts and recorded Jacques Offenbach's “ Chanson de Fortunio ”. After the occupation of all of France in autumn 1942, Alfred Tokayer decided to return to Paris, as he felt more secure in the anonymity of the big city, and from then on he called himself André Tharaud. An attempt to flee to England via Portugal failed and Tokayers fell into the hands of the Germans. After the internment stations in Beaune-la-Rolande and Drancy, where he met his parents Moritz and Gertrud again by pure chance, Alfred Tokayer was deported to the Sobibor concentration camp on March 25, 1943, where he was probably murdered shortly after his arrival.

On October 28, 2010, a stumbling block was laid in front of Tokayer's last house at Buttermarkt 9 in Köthen .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ City of Köthen (Anhalt) - The first stumbling blocks have been moved
personal data
SURNAME Tokayer, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Koethen
DATE OF DEATH March 1943
Place of death Sobibor concentration camp