A Sampling of the Emigre Experience

In tandem with the “Exiles and Emigres” exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the museum’s Monday Evening Concerts series took a look back to its storied associations with emigre composers. And who better to curate the event than pianist Leonard Stein, who appeared on the first installment of the series in 1939.

Seven compositions in all were presented by MEC Ensembles in Bing Theater, five by composers who settled locally. Little sense of unity was attempted in the lengthy agenda, but that was in keeping with the series, which has always been a sampler.

A group of Hanns Eisler songs best expressed one view of the emigres’ lot in Southern California. His Hollywood Elegies on texts by Bertolt Brecht are a biting take on the movie-town culture, where artists “go to the market where lies are sold.” In another Hollywood Elegy on his own text, Eisler laments the fate of his friend and fellow emigre Peter Lorre, whom he sees as sunk in the Hollywood swamp.

Schoenberg’s Andante Grazioso from his Violin Concerto (arranged for piano and violin) connected strongest with the exhibition itself. In it, we recognize the old forms of violinistic discourse transformed by the 12-tone method, a musical analog to emigre Max Beckmann’s tradition-twisting paintings.

Also heard were Stravinsky’s Four Songs on phonetic Russian texts for voice, flute, harp and guitar, given its premiere at MEC in 1955; Ernst Toch’s episodic, chromatical “Profiles” for piano; and Ernst Krenek’s modal, dusky Harp Sonata. From the New York contingent came Stefan Wolpe’s Trio in Two Parts, a severe exercise in capillary counterpoint and Bartok’s “Contrasts,” originally written for Benny Goodman.

Among the stalwart performers were Stein, pianist Delores Stevens, violinist Margaret Batjer, harpist Susan Allen and soprano Jacqueline Bobak.