Hans Krása | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Krása before 1935 | |
| Born | (1899-11-30)30 November 1899 |
| Died | 17 October 1944(1944-10-17) (aged 44) |
| Occupation | Composer |
Hans Krása (30 November 1899 – 17 October 1944) was aCzechcomposer. He was killed duringthe Holocaust atAuschwitz-Birkenau. He helped to organize cultural life inTheresienstadt concentration camp.
Hans Krása was born in Prague to the German Anna (Steiner) and Karl Krása, a Czech lawyer.[1] Both wereJewish.[citation needed] He studied both thepiano andviolin as a child and went on to study composition at the German Music Academy in Prague. After graduating, he went on to become arépétiteur at theNeues Deutsches Theater, where he met the composer and conductorAlexander von Zemlinsky, who had a major influence on Krása's career.
In 1927 he followed Zemlinsky to Berlin, where he was introduced toAlbert Roussel. Krása, whose primary influences wereMahler,Schoenberg and Zemlinsky, also felt an affinity with French music, especially the group of composers known asLes Six and made a number of trips to France to study under Roussel while he lived in Berlin. Krása eventually returned, homesick, to Prague to resume his old job as a répétiteur at the Neues Deutsches Theater. His debut as a composer came with hisFour Orchestral Songs, Op. 1, based on theGalgenlieder (Gallows Songs) ofChristian Morgenstern. The work was first performed under Zemlinsky's direction in Prague in May 1921 and was widely acclaimed. There followed a string quartet, a set of five songs for voice and piano and hisSymphonie für kleines Orchester, which was performed inZürich, Paris andBoston. His major achievement, however, was the operaVerlobung im Traum (Betrothal in a Dream) after the novelUncle's Dream byDostoyevsky. This work was first performed at the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague in 1933 underGeorg Szell and was awarded the Czechoslovak State Prize.[citation needed]
Brundibár, a children's opera based on a play byAristophanes, was the last work Krása completed before he was arrested by theNazis on 10 August 1942. Krása was sent to theTheresienstadt ghetto where he reworkedBrundibár with the available cast “and scattered salt of staging”, who then performed it 55 times in the camp, with excerpts featured in thepropaganda film made for theRed Cross in 1944. While he was interned in the ghetto, Krása was at his most productive, producing a number of chamber works includingTans, Theme with Variations, andPascaglia and Fugue,[2] although, due to the circumstances, some of these have not survived.[citation needed] He also contributed to the musical culture of Theresienstadt as a pianist, accompanist, and conductor.[2]
Along with fellow composersViktor Ullmann,Pavel Haas andGideon Klein, Krása was taken toAuschwitz. He was murdered on 17 October 1944.
His Three Songs after poems byArthur Rimbaud,Čtyřverší,Vzrušení andPřátelé, sung byChristian Gerhaher, appear on the CDTerezín - Theresienstadt initiated byAnne Sofie von Otter, Deutsche Grammophon, 2007.[4]
His String Quartet appears onPavel Haas and Hans Krása: String Quartets, performed by theHawthorne String Quartet as part of theDecca series,Entartete Musik, label: Decca 440 853–2.[5] As part of the same series his operaVerlobung im Traum (Betrothal in a Dream) andSymphonie appeared in recordings by theDeutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted byLothar Zagrosek andVladimir Ashkenazy respectively, label: Decca 455 587–2.[6]
