Ruth Leon recommends… Orchestra of Exiles – Bronislaw Huberman
Ruth Leon recommendsOrchestra of Exiles – Bronislaw Huberman
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This week, when we remember those who died in the Holocaust in Europe, comes this excellent documentary about those who didn’t die, thanks to the efforts of one man. The great violinist Bronislaw Huberman, seeing that the Nazis were decimating German orchestras by denying Jewish musicians work, decided to put his fame and commitment towards saving as many as possible by forming a new orchestra in Palestine.
Giving up his own career for the duration, he combed Eastern Europe, gathering the best Jewish musicians from Poland, Germany, Austria, and Holland, and fighting to get them certificates that would allow them to leave Europe and come to the desert land where there was nothing but sand and the possibility of making music again. This land became Israel and this orchestra became the Israel Philharmonic, still one of the world’s great orchestras.
There are interviews with many who were there at the start and with today’s international stars, all still associated with the IPO – Pinchas Zukerman, Itzchak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, Joshua Bell (who now plays Huberman’s Stradivarius), and many others – and there is music playing throughout.
It’s such a heart-warming story of adversity and triumph against the background of one of the darkest periods in our history. This week and always, remember the Holocaust and remember too those, who like Huberman, shone a light into the darkness.
It’s a great story, and blessed be Pan Huberman’s memory, but seriously, “a desert land where there was nothing but sand”? We’re talking about Mandatory Palestine here, not Saudi Arabia!
Pls research how much of the northern 3rd of Israel was a malarial swamp at this time. Life was very difficult there
How hard it is to write Huberman created Palestine Symphony Orchestra? What happened after with it is just politics.
Certainly. “Palestinians” was then the name of the Jews in that country. No one has heard of “Arabs-Palestinians”.
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The documentary also makes clear why Toscanini, in addition to outstanding performances, has always occupied a special place in the Jewish community due to his opposition to fascism in Italy and leading, without fee, the inaugural series of Palestine Orchestra concerts in 1936-1937.
Huberman was a remarkable man and a great artist, if one cares to listen with open ears.
This was telecast in the US on PBS. It’s a really good docu, highly recommended.
Nice column.
My memory is that the film makes no mention of Adolf Busch, the great German violinist and humanist who – by special request of Huberman – was the Palestine Orchestra’s first soloist. It was Huberman’s wish to involve, at the very beginning, two gentile musicians who had particularly spoken out against Hitler, Toscanini and Busch. Busch gave four performances of the Brahms Concerto with Hans Wilhelm (William) Steinberg and also gave a recital. He visited the Tel-Amal Kibbutz, made many friends – some of his pupils were in the orchestra – and was very moved by his time in Palestine. He had hoped to meet up with the Toscaninis in Cairo on the way home, but was struck down with flu and had to reschedule his Cairo performances. If my memory is at fault and Busch is given due credit, I apologise. In any case, he was part of the orchestra’s history and was due to return after the war, but was unable to do so because of the war with the Arab states.