Julius Chajes

Julius Chajes (born December 21, 1910 in Lemberg , Austria-Hungary ; died February 24, 1985 in Detroit ) was an American pianist and composer of Austrian-Jewish origin.

Life

Julius Chajes was born the son of a dentist and his wife Velerja in what was then the capital of the Crown Land of Galicia in the Danube Monarchy . His mother was a well-known pianist and gave him his first piano lessons.

In 1920 he moved to Vienna, where a distant relative of his already lived: Zwi Perez Chajes . He received further training in piano from Richard Robert, Julius Isserlis and Moriz Rosenthal and his wife Hedwig Kanner-Rosenthal, and studied composition with Hugo Kauder . Chajes was considered a pianistic prodigy who played his first piano recital at the age of 9 and created his first compositions, and at the age of 15 he performed his Romantic Fantasy with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra . At the 1933 International Pianist Competition he was awarded the City of Vienna Prize.

Before Chajes emigrated to Palestine in 1934 , the Rosé Quartet gave a farewell concert. a. In addition to a reproduction of his String Quartet No. 2, Op. 14, his String Quartet No. 3, Op. 18 was premiered.

In Tel Aviv he became the head of the piano class at the Beit L'viyim Music Academy and undertook in-depth studies on the origin and development of Jewish music and the folk music cultivated in the region. This also had a lasting influence on his own compositional style and made him one of the most famous representatives among the composers of modern Israeli music.

In 1937 he moved to the USA and made his debut in New York in 1938. In 1940 he became music director of the Detroit Jewish community and taught at Wayne State University from 1950 . As chairman of the HaSchofar association, Chajes campaigned for the promotion of Jewish music and founded his own symphony orchestra. He continued his career as a pianist with performances of his own compositions and those of others. a. he had appearances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Paul Paray .

As a composer he had a lasting influence on Jewish music in America, both for synagogue use and on the concert stages. In addition, he campaigned for mutual understanding between Jews, Catholics and Protestants.

Henryk Szeryng wrote about him in 1978: "His music is to Israel what Chopin's music is to Poland, de Falla to Spain or Bartók's to Hungary."

Works

Chajes' work includes stage and orchestral works, chamber music and vocal compositions. Many of his choral and song compositions are intended for liturgical use in the synagogue. His works for violin and cello have been played by Mischa Elman , Emanuel Feuermann and Pablo Casals , among others . The works composed in America were published by the Transcontinental Music Corporation in New York.

• Three string quartets .
• Romantic fantasy for piano and orchestra . 1925.
• Hebrew Suite for Orchestra . 1939, rev. 1965.
• The 142nd Psalm for solos, mixed choir, string orchestra and organ . 1941.
• Zion, Rise and Shine . Cantata for solos, mixed choir and organ (or orchestra). Around 1942.
• Sonata in A minor for violin and piano. Around 1955.
• Concerto in E for piano and orchestra. Around 1956.
• The promised land . Cantata for a speaker, soloists and choir with piano accompaniment. 1958 (on the tenth anniversary of the founding of Israel).
• Out of the desert . Opera in three acts. First performance in 1966.
• Song of the Pioneers . Words from Michael Atzmoni. For soprano, alto, tenor and bass with piano accompaniment. Manuscript.

literature

• Darryl Lyman: Great Jews in Music . Jonathan David Publishers, New York 1986, ISBN 0-824-60315-X .
• Walter Pass , Gerhard Scheit , Wilhelm Svoboda : Orpheus in exile. The expulsion of Austrian music 1938–1945 . Publishing house for social criticism , Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-851-15200-X .
• Austrian music lexicon . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3043-0 (Volume 1).
• Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century. Volume 1: A-I. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 .

Web links

• Julius Chajes Papers The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (Retrieved October 3, 2009; English)
• Julius T. Chajes in the Milken Archive of Jewish Music (accessed March 6, 2011; English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wiener Konzerthaus , Mozart Hall; March 11, 1934
2. ↑ Julius Chajes (1910–1985)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Thesaurus of Jewish Music