Hans Winterberg, a Jewish, Prague-born composer, survived the Holocaust in Theresienstadt, a concentration camp, because his arrival in January 1945 followed a mass deportation to Auschwitz.
Historical Context
In 1901, the year Hans Winterberg was born, Prague was an Austrian city within the Habsburg kingdom of Bohemia, part of a vast, multilingual Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Compositional Technique
Hans Winterberg's music is characterized by polyrhythms and jagged melodic energy, which his Sudeten German colleagues found uncharacteristic of German composers of his generation.
Compositional Technique
Winterberg's 'Impressionism' is described as 'Czech Impressionism', which evokes smells and energies rather than just shimmering light, making it earthier than its French counterpart.
Composition History
Hans Winterberg's musical estate was embargoed until 2031 by his adopted son, with the condition that his Jewish identity never be revealed and he be referred to only as a 'Sudeten German Composer'.
Composer Biography
Hans Winterberg's family had lived in Prague for over 300 years and identified as 'Czech nationals and Czech speakers' in the 1930 census, despite many Czech Jews being German-speakers.
Compositional Technique
Unlike other composers of 'New Objectivity' like Paul Hindemith and Ernst Toch, Hans Winterberg's works feature constant shifting of time-signatures and rhythmic patterns, rather than machine-like consistency.
