Of Jewish Destiny (1936)
(Vom jüdischen Schicksal)

Richard Fuchs was trained as both an architect and a musician. Although he was very successful as an architect, only a few of his buildings remain today; his synagogue in Gernsbach was destroyed during the “Kristallnacht” pogroms in November 1938. Following Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, he was no longer permitted to practice as an architect, but through his involvement with the Jewish Cultural Federation as a composer, he was able to realize his vision of “German music” — regardless of the ruling authorities’ dictates regarding what was deemed “German” and “pure.”

His large-scale oratorio “Of Jewish Destiny” (Vom jüdischen Schicksal), based on texts by Karl Wolfskehl and Süßkind von Trimberg, was an attempt at a dialectical symbiosis of a genuinely Jewish text with genuinely German music — a performance of which the Nazis would never have permitted. At the end of 1938, Fuchs was released from Dachau thanks to a visa for New Zealand. Upon arriving in Wellington, however, he was imprisoned as an “enemy alien” due to the outbreak of war — thus, after being persecuted as a Jew in Germany, he was now persecuted as a German in New Zealand. After his release, Fuchs tried to come to terms with his new surroundings and wrote works inspired by the local landscape.

Movements

1. Und dennoch (And Yet)
2. Stimme der Vorzeit (Voice of the Past)
3. Aufbruch, Aufbruch (Departure, Departure)
4. Vor Ausfahrt (Before Departure)

Movement II text by Süßkind von Trimberg, translated by Bertha Badt-Strauss from Middle High German. Used with permission.

About the Exilarte Edition

G. Schirmer/Wise Music’s Exilarte Edition exclusively publishes works by composers who were persecuted, forced into exile, or murdered by the Nazi regime. All original manuscripts of these works are archived in the Exilarte Center at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in Austria.