Lost over the years, the music of The Tiger Who Came to the Author’s Mother is heard again | Germany

Albert Einstein is hosting a party at his beach house where he presents his latest invention to his guests: a time machine.

This opens the opera Chronoplan, which began in the late 1920s with the composer Julia Kerr, who participated in it when she fled the Nazis. Germany and his family in early 1933, his first exhibition was canceled after Hitler’s coup.

A larger family story is recorded in When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, a biography of Kerr’s daughter, Judith, in which she describes her mother playing the piano. But Kerr’s reputation as one of the most talented singers of his time was largely forgotten after the couple’s dramatic escapades, ending his music career.

Until now. On a recent evening, the descendants who left London gathered in Einstein’s garden. old summer house in Caputh, southwest of Berlin, where Chronoplan was founded, to celebrate the life and work of Julia Kerr. The recordings, which were found missorted and gathering dust in archives, were composed by singer-actress Ruth Rosenfeld and pianist Norbert Biermann, who spent a lot of time re-creating them.

Julia and her husband, Alfred, who was considered the greatest critic of theater in Weimar Berlin, were guests at Einstein’s house, along with other cultural figures of the day, such as composer Richard Strauss and writers George Bernard Shaw and Arthur Schnitzler, both in opera.

The wooden house, paid for with money from Einstein’s Nobel Prize, is where friends enjoyed socializing with intellectuals and cruises on the nearby lake.

Christian Leitmeir, a music historian at Oxford University, first came up with the idea to look into Julia Kerr’s musical life after reading When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit to her son. He said: “There was a brief description of him playing the piano and composing music.

After searching through the archives of the Academy of Arts in Berlin he found Kerr’s writings, which were incorrectly listed under her husband’s name, in the literature and drama section.

Meanwhile, Sonja Westerbeck, the extraordinary consultant of the State Theater in Mainz, also discovered Chronoplan, which was handed over. international stage at the beginning of this year, almost a hundred years since it was written.

Westerbeck, who was at the Caputh meeting, said: “Julia Kerr has spent too long as a small part of the story – it’s time to bring her back to the forefront”.

The Kerr family was invited to Berlin by the new management Exile Museum due to open in early 2028 which will bring together the stories of Julia, Alfred and Judith, along with those of others who were forced to flee.

The rediscovery of Kerr’s work comes amid increased scholarly and public interest in forgotten female composers, many of whom have been unfairly dismissed from the history of classical music.

George Kerr, a civil servant who is Julia’s grandson, said he had only recently learned about Julia’s life.

He said: “I am very encouraged to know that he was talented and talented. However, circumstances forced him to stop writing the song in order to provide for his family.” He would be happy to be sure that such interest is shown in his work when he was so neglected in life.”

As readers of her book will know, Judith’s pink rabbit was left behind in Berlin, but Julia was able to take part in her incomplete opera, going through half of its songs. Europe. But when he arrived in England, he had to give up his ambitions to be the breadwinner, working as a secretary and translator, as Alfred did not know English.

After his death in 1948, he returned to Berlin and worked as a translator The Nuremberg Trials and to US President John F Kennedy when he visited Berlin in 1963.

In 1952, Chronoplan was recorded by Bavarian Broadcasting, becoming the first opera to have a radio play, which Leitmeir said was a reflection of the nature of the work. “His music was magic,” he said. “He was like a gipie who absorbed everything around him from different backgrounds.”

In correspondence with her family, Julia called the six days she spent recording the song “the happiest of my life.” everything he blew exactly like I’ve heard in my head for 20 years. No one can take that away from me and now I know I can write music.” Julia Kerr died in 1965.

His grandson Tim Kerr, a retired high court judge, remembers him as “a strong, single-minded person”. He added: “He would play fun little songs he had written on the piano and I would play the same songs on the recorder.

Best known in the UK for his picture book The Tiger Who Came to TeaJudith Kerr, who He died at the age of 95 in 2019, it is very popular in the Germany of When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit, where it appears regularly in school lessons.

In a letter to his mother in 1952, Judith Kerr he remembered how unhappy Julia was because of not being able to do her work.