Reviving A Forgotten Culture
Russian-Jewish Music's Struggles in German Culture
Abstract
The pianist and musicologist Jascha Nemtsov is working to stop Jewish culture from being forgotten. As a music archaeologist, he has uncovered the works of persecuted composers. He has traced the Jewish legacy in European music and familiarised listeners with the sound of the New Jewish School. As an individual and through his work, Nemtsov represents the Russian-Jewish cultural transfer. Incidentally, he also fills in gaps in the German culture of remembrance. In an autobiographical retrospective of Jewish life in the Soviet Union, Nemtsov explains why the Gulag was a major stroke of luck for his father, and why his family emigrated to Germany, of all places. He has a problem with the fact that many Germans are only interested in Jewish culture when it helps them to feel better about themselves. Never has knowledge about the New Jewish School been greater than today, although in musical life, it remains marginalised.
(Special Issue, S. 5–16)