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Oxford's "Hitler émigrés" |
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Famous names
Lincoln college front quad as it would have looked to Wellesz and co.
© Lincoln College Archives |
Gertie and Raimund von Hofmannsthal (the widow and son of the poet who had written many of Richard Strauss's opera librettos) lived in Oxford during the war, attracting around themselves many well-known members of the refugee community. Another who provided something of a social magnet was the Austrian musician Egon Wellesz, a former pupil (and biographer) of Schoenberg and a much-performed composer in Vienna before he was forced to flee. Once settled in Oxford, Wellesz became a Fellow of Lincoln College where all the best young music students flocked to learn from him.
Sebastian and Helene Isepp also came to live in Oxford (it was Wellesz who had first introduced them to each other). Sebastian was one of the world's top art restorers and Helene a singing teacher whose pupils were to include Dame Janet Baker, while their son Martin Isepp later became Head of Music at Glyndebourne. Round the corner lived Leonie Gombrich, Martin's piano teacher; the Gombrichs' son Ernst was to become probably the world's most famous art historian.
Rudolf Bing became General Manager of the New York Metropolitan Opera.
© Marian Anderson Collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania
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Rudolf Bing lived in Oxford during the war, too. Later celebrated as creator of the Edinburgh Festival, Bing had managed Glyndebourne Opera in its early years and went on to become General Manager of the New York Metropolitan Opera. But during the war, he commuted each day from Oxford to London where he had a managerial job in the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square.
The list of names is dazzling, perhaps confusing at this distance, and some of the stars have doubtless been outshone in later years. But there was scarcely a field of human endeavour at Oxford that was not illuminated by the newcomers from across the Channel. The leading dealer in ancient books and manuscripts, Albi Rosenthal, moved to Oxford. So did Bela Horovitz, the founder of the art book publishers Phaidon Press; you can still find the occasional early edition in second-hand bookshops with the imprint "Phaidon, 14 St Giles, Oxford".
The Story of Art by Ernst Gombrich, has been a bestseller for Phaidon for over five decades.
© Phaidon Press, 1950 |
When the Slade School of Art was evacuated during the war from London to Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, one of its students was Bela's son, Joseph Horovitz. Joe's greatest talent, however, was as a composer; he became a pupil of Wellesz and later produced a wide range of outstanding compositions from serious string quartets to music for brass band, to television's "Rumpole" theme. Several of Hitler's émigrés - Lord (Claus) Moser, Sir John Burgh, Sir Walter Bodmer - went on to become heads of Oxford colleges.
Words: Daniel Snowman
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