Don Jaffe

Don Jaffé (born January 24, 1933 in Riga ) is a German-Israeli musician and composer.

biography

family

Jaffé is the son of Jakov Jaffé, who studied electrical engineering in Berlin, and Ella Jaffé, who attended the German commercial school in Riga. The Jewish father then lived in Riga in Latvia . In 1941 - the German Reich also conquered Latvia during World War II - the Jewish family had to flee to Siberia in the Soviet Union and survived there. The entire extended family with 70 relatives in Latvia and Lithuania , however, was murdered.

In 1956 he married Elza Jaffé; the children Ramón (* 1962, now a cellist) and Diana (* 1969, now an author and gender marketing expert) were born. He has lived in Bremen since 1975.

education and profession

At the end of 1944 he returned to Riga. In 1947, fourteen-year-old Jaffé received his first cello lessons at the music school for particularly gifted children. In 1951 - after only four years - he had already successfully completed his music training as a string player at the Riga Conservatory and was the first student.

Jaffé then worked as a soloist and chamber musician and enjoyed international success. He also worked with a teaching position at the Latvian Conservatory in Riga .

In 1971 the family moved to Israel because of increasing anti-Semitic moods and reprisals in the USSR . Jaffé taught at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem and played in the Jerusalem Radio Orchestra. He took an active part in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 .

In 1974 the family moved to Germany because - according to Jaffé - "their cultural roots were here". In 1974, Jaffé was solo cellist with the Berliner Symphoniker . In 1975 he became a member of the Bremen Philharmonic State Orchestra . He also took up a teaching position at the University of the Arts in Bremen . In 1985 he was appointed chamber musician by the Bremen Senate .

composer

Before retiring in 1997, he began working in composition. His works are shaped by Jewish and his personal history and "often thematically dedicated to the Shoah victims". His first compositional successes encouraged him to continue his work. In his works, Jaffé recalls the persecution of the Jewish people with the words: "It is my mission to create musical memorials."

Works

• Passions , Sonata for Solo Cello, 1997
• Shoa , sonata for solo cello
• Serefina's dreams , Sonatino for violoncello and piano
• Lior , Sonatino for violoncello and piano
• So see, the time will come , string trio
• Prologue to Rabbi von Bacherach after Heinrich Heine , for violoncello and speaker
• Via dolorosa ebraica , Sonata for violoncello and piano, 2007
• Saulkrasti , Suite Fantasy for Violoncello and Harp
• The last days , suite for violoncello and violin
• Ballad about trout and the life of Franz Schubert , for cello, violin and harp
• Through time , for violoncello and organ
• Death fugue , poem by Paul Celan , for violoncello, organ and choir
• Choro Symphony , for choir and violoncello
• Anni horribili , Chamber Symphony
• Symphony El sueno de la razón produce monstruos ( sleep of reason gives birth to monsters ) after Francisco de Goya , symphony orchestra
• Exodus 1971 , chamber symphony for cello, piano and string orchestra
• Symphonic novel , double concerto for viola, cello and orchestra

swell

• Information from Don Jaffé
• Baltic Rundschau: Interview with the German-Jewish cellist and composer Don Jaffé : 2013.
• Sigrid Schuer: Birthday concert for Don Jaffé in the broadcasting hall of Radio Bremen with u. a. Ramon Jaffé, cellist and the Japanese pianist Minako Schneegass. Weser-Kurier from January 24, 2013.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Iris Heischer: The key of the Shoah . In: Weser-Kurier of February 3, 2016, p. 24.