A staged concert about attempts to eradicate a musical culture

This year, organizations across the country are commemorating 250 years of Jewish life in Sweden. At the Norrlandsoperan, we are marking this occasion with two full-length concerts in October and November.

*Stolen Music* is the story of the Nazis’ efforts to silence their victims, but also of music as an act of resistance. In this staged concert, we get up close with some of the musicians who suffered looting and persecution—and listen to the music the Nazis tried to destroy.

Stolen Music

During the Third Reich, the Nazis attempted to eradicate “Jewish influence” over European music. Tens of thousands of musicians were persecuted and murdered. The special unit Sonderstab Musik led the hunt for Europe’s most valuable musical treasures, priceless instruments, and manuscripts by masters such as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.

In *Stolen Music*, viewers follow violinist Arnold Rosé and his daughter Alma Rosé in their fateful struggle to keep their instruments, as well as Władysław Szpilman, Ilse Weber, Shony Braun, Wanda Landowska, and Lev Aronson. The music was composed by composers such as Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, and Ilse Weber, among others.

Incomparable significance

Music held a significance incomparable to that of other art forms during the Holocaust. Literature, art, and theater existed only in exceptional cases within the Nazi camp system, while music was present almost everywhere. Camp orchestras were formed in most camps, but music also occurred in secret, as an act of resistance. Music was also present as a form of oppression, as a tool for torture and collective punishment—for example, through forced singing.

Nazi ideologues regarded music as the highest art form and the one most characteristic of the Germanic peoples. As early as the mid-1850s, Richard Wagner had warned against Jewish infiltration of this high art in his infamous essay *Judaism in Music*. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, the purge of “Jewish influence” in the field of music began.

Based on an acclaimed book

*Stolen Music * is based on Anders Rydell’s acclaimed book *Stolen Music: The Nazis’ Plunder and Music as Resistance*.