Continental Britons - The Émigré Composers
Wellesz, Spinner, Goldschmidt, Gellhorn,
Tauský, Gál, Seiber, Reizenstein, Rankl

At the time of Hitler’s rise in 1933, Jewish musicians were perhaps Germany’s and Austria’s most important living cultural assets. There was hardly a note of popular music that did not rely on Jewish artists for either the tunes or the words, and often both. Jewish musicians were equally active in the established and avant-garde music scenes. Of the nearly 70 composers who came to the UK to escape Nazi persecution between 1933 and 1945, some remained permanently, while others stayed for only a short time before moving on to the Americas, South Africa and Australia. Refugee Jewish doctors, academics and scientists were made more welcome in Britain than musicians. By 1938, the Foreign Office had decreed that ‘musicians and minor commercial artists’ were ‘unsuitable’ for entry. Yet composers and performers saw the UK as a haven of liberalism and tolerance...