Photo (from left to right): Karl-Albrecht Weinberger, Director of the Jewish Museum Vienna, composer Walter Arlen and Barbara Prammer, President of the Austrian Parliament.
The tiny and fragile Walter Arlen (b. 1920) in his dark suit and tie sat calmly at the left side of the stage at the back at a small table a glass of water at his hand. A microphone clipped to his jacket, he seemed tired as this concert in his honor draws to a close after more than two hours.
It was a moving event, recognizing the 70th anniversary of the Nazi Anschluss of Mar. 12, 1938, at Vienna’s Jewish Museum. On the stage with him Music Curator Michael Haas “my actual discoverer,” as Arlen put it, was alert to his failing energy wove an effortless narrative of history and insight around the old man’s memories, including the audience in a musical fireside chat.
At the same time, Arlen’s bright eyes and charming smile glowed with excitement as the evening reached its climax. Respected in America as Music Critic for the Los Angeles Times, Arlen had rarely been the center of attention as a composer, except perhaps at Loyola Marymount University’s Music Department in the 1960s.
So, this was a special homecoming after the decades of exile, after the shock of disinterest in Austria for its returned Jews after World War II. This was not something unique to Walter Arlen; a whole generation of Austrians suffered this same fate. But every life, and every story is unique, and needs to be told, touching the listener each time when the recounting of a life lost and found.
An exhibition accompanying the concert included photographs and personal documents, complementing the ongoing exhibition on the Korngolds, the celebrated Viennese critic and his famous émigré composer son.
On that evening, Arlen told his story was told in six episodes from the dark days in March 1938 to the present, interspersed with performances of his chamber music by soprano Irene Waller, violinist Iva Nicolova, and Andrea Linsbauer on the piano.
