Don’t Forget About Me – The Short Life of Gideon Klein, Composer and Pianist
by David Fligg
Published 2023
Hardback, 321 pages
Toccata Press
Dr David Fligg was unknown to me until I received the present book, which he authored, for review. So, I did a little online research and found out that Dr Fligg has an impressive and rather distinguished CV. He is Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where he previously lectured Academic Studies. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Chester. According to the website of the Royal Northern College of Music, Dr Fligg is a musicologist who specialises in the music of Czech/Jewish composer and pianist Gideon Klein (1919-1945). Klein was killed in a Nazi concentration camp.
I must confess that I’d never heard about composer/pianist Gideon Klein before. But, given his short life, it is perhaps not as strange as it may seem for someone interested in music. It was for this reason that I wanted to read the book thus requesting to review it.
Klein was born into a Moravian Jewish family in Přerov. He demonstrated musical talent early and studied piano and composition with distinguished teachers of the time. As the Nazis closed all universities and higher education institutions when they occupied Czechoslovakia (March 1939) Klein was forced to stop his university studies in 1940. The Nazi regime banned all compositions, concerts and recitals by Jewish musicians. Klein was unable to perform his own works but he managed to continue as a concert pianist, using aliases. In spite of the terrible situation Klein did not stop composing. In 1940, the Royal Academy of Music in London offered him a scholarship. Sadly, by that time the anti-Jewish legislation in Germany and occupied countries prevented him from emigrating to the UK. Deported to Terezin concentration camp in December 1941, Gideon Klein became one of the major composers at the camp, alongside Leoš Janáček’s pupils Pavel Haas and Hans Krása, and Schoenberg’s pupil Viktor Ullmann. They gave concerts in secret to start with. Eventually, as part of the Nazi propaganda to show the public there was no hidden agenda in the camps, artistic activities were allowed in Terezin. Klein’s compositions from these years include music for a string quartet, a string trio, and a piano sonata, to name only a few. He also continued to perform as a solo pianist in a relatively large number of recitals and, additionally, participated in chamber music performances, as the pianist in piano trios or quartets. Gideon Klein was deported to Auschwitz in October 1944 for a brief time and, a little later, to Fürstengrube, a slave labour coal mine, sub-camp of the better known Auschwitz. He was killed at the age of 25 on 25th January 1945. Before leaving for Auschwitz, Klein confided his manuscripts to Irma Semecká, his girlfriend. These were then handed over to his sister, Lisa, at the end of the war.
The title of the book Don’t Forget About Me came from a heartrending, distressing letter – the last that Gideon Klein wrote – which he managed to smuggle out of Fürstengrube. In it he asks to be remembered by writing the words Nezapomeňte na mne. It poignantly translates as ‘Don’t forget about me’. David Fligg tells this story in his Author’s Note at the beginning of the book. He says that this pitiful appeal was, ‘the catalyst for this book and the years of research he has spent on the trail, in search of Gideon Klein’.
From the moment you take the book in your hands you realise the paper and hardcover are of great quality and that a lot of care went into producing an attractive book to look at and hold. The cover designed by David M. Baker contains a portrait of Gideon Klein, painted by Charlotta Burešová in 1944 in Terezin. It is a poignant image, as it’s the last known picture of Gideon Klein. The spine of the book includes a rather attractive photo of Klein, displaying a lovely, warm smile.
As one would expect from someone with such an illustrious curriculum as David Fligg, the book is brilliantly written and also contains insightful analyses into Klein’s music. The narrative is eloquent but accessible, objective and factual but at times also emotional with some descriptions that are almost lyrical. Unusual but aesthetical, rather satisfying and pleasurable to read in a book that is essentially a biography. The language is beautifully varied, which grabs you, and Gideon Klein’s story is as extraordinary as it is tragic. As a biography Don’t Forget About Me is a page-turner and I couldn’t put it down. I think it is only the second biography in many I have read through the years that I can classify as a page-turner. The other being Jessica Duchen’s biography of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, published by Phaidon in 1996.
The story of Gideon Klein is exceptionally well organised in logical, chronological order. It is enhanced by Fligg’s impeccable research, the many interviews and contemporary testimonies he gathered from people who knew Gideon, especially his sister, Lisa, who dedicated her life to propagate the work of her talented brother. She died in 1999 in Prague at the age of 87. There are numerous photographs (mostly in black and white but some in colour) of places where Klein lived, and of his family and friends. Additionally, the reader will also find pictures of Klein’s music manuscripts and of concert/recital programmes that he performed – some under his pseudonym of Vránek. At the end of the book there are two appendixes. Number 2 is a chronology, listing significant events and dates connected to the life of Gideon Klein. I found this very helpful, as it provides good support to locate Klein’s life in the full context of the period and of the horrors that were taking place. Appendix 1 contains a full list of Gideon Klein’s completed and almost-completed original compositions, arrangements and texts.
Fligg ends the narrative, appropriate and touchingly, with the words of Klein’s sister Lisa: ‘He [Gideon Klein] was gifted by God. I have always admired that gift, and I always will. Until the end of my life.’
David Fligg dedicates the book to the memory of his parents Ben and Charlotte Fligg – a loving, tender gesture that I found genuinely appealing and refreshing.
I enjoyed reading Don’t Forget About Me – The Short Life of Gideon Klein, Composer and Pianist immensely, as well as learning about his life and work. It is a gripping, if tragic story of a composer and pianist who died too young, at the “nearly” tender age of twenty-five. An extraordinary talent cut short but sadly not unique during the period of Hitler’s Nazi regime that ruled Germany and unleashed WWII. Whether you are interested in history or in Gideon Klein’s life and artistry, this book is a splendid read. I can only recommend it to the public in general that enjoy a good, informative, well-written book and in particular to any bookworm who, like me, will devour any quality fiction or non-fiction that comes its way.
Margarida Mota-Bull
Margarida writes more than just reviews, check it online: https://www.flowingprose.com/
Previous review: Stephen Greenbank (February 2023)
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