Paying a musical tribute
BY GEORGE DREYFUS. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in March last year I filled the Hawthorn Town Hall with the first performance of my Third Symphony, an amalgam of compositions based on Goethe’s Faust combined with songs from the Spanish Civil War.
“Filled” means with sound and audience, although even the never-used upstairs galleries were brim-full, but then admission was free.
On another Sunday afternoon in March this year, I filled the St Kilda Town Hall, this time with the first performance of my Dreyfus, Dreyfus, Dreyfus, an amalgam of compositions by seven well-known anti-Semitic composers of the past, among them Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner, and popular, violent anti-Dreyfus street songs from the time of the famous trials of French captain Alfred Dreyfus.
I am particularly proud of my choral finale, a re-composition of music by the prominent Nazi party member and conductor of the Wiener Philharmoniker Leopold Reichwein, which I discovered hidden away in the Preussische Staatsbibliothek in Berlin.
Reichwein hanged himself just before the Russians could put him on trial in 1945, and I concocted the text from Emile Zola’s explosive pro-Dreyfus tirades – fabulous contradictions.
Everybody performed for free – the orchestra, the choir, the dancers and soloists. The Pratt Foundation covered the cost of the hall, music copyist, insurance, advertising. It all went very well.
My followers – elderly groupies – went home satisfied, if not exactly humming the tunes. They did whistle, hum and clap along with the theme from Rush, a golden oldie by now, just about drowning the priceless music.
Both events took a lot of organising. I thought there had to be an easier way of keeping myself in the public eye, and keeping Alzheimer’s at bay. For example, I swim at the Harold Holt pool every day, inside of course.
Let me say though, that for every 10 press releases that I send out about where and what my mates and I are playing, I get maybe one response. So what? I feel on top of the world.
“Press release”, I hear you say. “What’s that? Go on, Twitter, tweet, network on Facebook or join LinkedIn, be contemporary!” But all that’s not for me – I don’t even have a mobile phone.
Mid-year I reformed the Melbourne Bassoon Quartet to play a selection of my compositions. I play the fourth bassoon part, which I can still manage at 85. After all, I played with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra from 1953-64.
We recently performed at the Melbourne Recital Centre – now that’s big time – and at the Wesley Anne Hotel in Northcote. It’s not exactly a Jewish area, but for me, with my egalitarian sentiments, equally big time!
I wasn’t brought up in the Theodor Herzl shul in prewar Berlin for nothing (I am still in touch with fellow students).
Stonnington Council has provided funds for the Quartet to play for free at seven retirement villages and primary schools in the local area. The King David School is one of the schools that has signed up for their littlies, with the Chris Gahan Citizens Centre for their not-so-littlies. However, we need to find three more venues.
And sorry, but we don’t play at bar mitzvahs.
George Dreyfus was born in Wuppertal, Germany in 1928. He left Germany in 1939 and settled in Australia. At 20, he joined the orchestra at His Majesty’s Theatre and nine years later joined the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as a bassoonist. In 1965 he became a freelance composer for film, TV and the stage, with his best-known work being the theme for the TV series, Rush. His appointments include composer-in-residence at the German Academy in Rome and Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem. He was recipient of the first Creative Arts Fellowship at the Australian National University in 1967 and composed operas including Rathenau (1993). Honours include an Order of Australia (1992) and awards from UNESCO (1966), the Prix de Rome (1976) and the Australia Council (1991). In 1984, he published his autobiography, The Last Frivolous Book, and his memoir, Don’t Ever Let Them Get You! was published in 2009. He lives in Melbourne and is the father of federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.
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