Arno
NadelOct 3, 1878 (Vilna) - Transport to Auchwitz, March 12, 1943
Arno
Nadel
Oct 3, 1878 (Vilna) - Transport to Auchwitz, March 12, 1943
Arno Nadel was born in Vilna in 1878. In childhood he showed tremendous talent for musical composition and, consequently, he chose to pursue music as a career. At the age of seventeen he entered the Jewish Teacher's Institute in Berlin, and he became so enamored with that city he decided to spend the rest of his life there. In 1916, Nadel was appointed conductor for the choir of the largest synagogue in Berlin, and shortly thereafter he became the musical supervisor of all Berlin synagogues.
As an adult, Nadel displayed a special aptitude and concern for the writing of poetry. Until 1935, a dozen books containing Nadel's poems were published and distributed throughout Germany However, with the advent of Nazism, Nadel's books were burned and any further publication of his poetic work was prohibited. In 1943, Nadel was transported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was subsequently murdered.
Nadel's poetry gained its greatest popularity in the early 1920s when the writer was influenced by the spiritual philosophy of Taoism. A circle of writers, painters, and musicians gathered around Nadel at this time in order to hear him read and comment on his work. In addition, actors from the German stage gave periodic reading from Nadel's Taoist poetry at a major art gallery in Berlin. In 1923, some of these poems were published as a chapbook entitled Lao Tsu and Confucius (Poems Following a Chinese Motif).
Although Nadel's Taoist poetry possesses a metaphysical quality, his motivation for writing in this vein was strictly a worldly one. According to one observer who heard Nadel's work being read, the poet intended his material to serve as an antidote to the prevailing attitudes of selfishness and animosity which existed in Weimar Germany. Nadel hoped that the quiet, gentle whispering of his poems would counter the insensitive anger that he currently witnessed all around him, especially the belligerence connected to a new wave of anti-Semitism which had emerged in Germany since its defeat in World War I.
Between 1910 and the year of his death, 1943, Arno Nadel's poetry was compared favorably to the works of the great German lyrical poets, Alfred Mombert, Theodor Daubler, and Oscar Loerke. Even though the latter three individuals have had some of their poems translated into English, this honor, up till now, has escaped Nadel. The present translations of Nadel's Taoist poetry apparently are the first time his work has ever appeared in the English language.
Arno Nadel (1878-1943) est un musicologue, un écrivain, un peintre. Depuis 1916,
il était maître de la chorale de la synagogue orthodoxe de Kottbusser Ufer.
Les pogroms de 1938 lui ont valu d’ętre emprisonné plusieurs semaines au camp de
concentration de Sachsenhausen, ce qui l’a profondément traumatisé.
Sa femme
et lui ont ensuite été déportés ŕ Auschwitz en mars 1943 et mis ŕ mort dčs leur
arrivée.
Jascha Nemtsov
Music in CD set Vorbei...Beyond Recall
Khad Gadyo (Neumann, Oberkantor Karl) 3:15
Khad Gadyo (Lammchen) (Neumann, Oberkantor Karl) 3:12
Elohai Ad Scheloi Nozarti (Vocal : Blumberg, Joseph / Harp : Hemon, A. Mille)
3:25
Leman Irbu (Vocal : Bakon, Khazn Israel / Piano : Nadel, Arno) 3:27
Eloheynu Velohey (Vocal : Bakon, Khazn Israel / Piano : Nadel, Arno) 3:37
Film Hebrew Melody (1935)
Directed by Helmar Lerski
Sigmund Petruschka (Instrumentation)
Original Music by Joseph Achron
Cinematography by Helmar Lerski
Walter Kristeller (camera leader)
Arno Nadel (music of prelude)
Joseph Rosenstock (musical director)
Andreas Weißgerber (musician: violin)
Der Jüdische Kulturbund Rhein-Ruhr
Fünf Volkslieder (Bearbeitungen)
1. A Meed'l in die Jahren
2. Joime, Joime
3. Geh ich mir spazieren
4. Amol is gewen a Majsse
5. Her nor du scheen Meedele
Works