{"id":7978,"date":"2017-10-03T12:32:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T11:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=7978"},"modified":"2017-10-03T12:32:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T11:32:48","slug":"hans-gal-on-the-30th-anniversary-of-his-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2017\/10\/03\/hans-gal-on-the-30th-anniversary-of-his-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Hans G\u00e1l on the 30th Anniversary of his Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s exactly 30 years today since the death of\u00a0Hans G\u00e1l<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his early career, he was one of the compositional stars of his generation, his music heard in leading concert halls and opera houses across Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

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First banned by the Nazi’s in 1933, he escaped to the UK and went on to a distinguished second career teaching at Edinburgh University. Fortunately, his inner light as a composer never faded, and he continued composing works brimming with originality, lyricism and feeling well into his 90’s.<\/p>\n

G\u00e1l had the temerity to outlive his “historical moment,” and in the last 20-30 years of his creative life, he was treated as something of an anachronism. At the time of his death, there wasn’t a single compete recording of his orchestral music available- a disgraceful state of affairs which carried on until 2009. Thanks in large part to the efforts of visionary recording companies, particularly\u00a0AVIE Records<\/a>, an ever-widening selection of his music is not being heard and discussed world wide. Important recent books on 20th Century music, including\u00a0Forbidden Music by Michael Haas<\/a>\u00a0have discussed G\u00e1l’s achievement and legacy in great depth.<\/p>\n

But his music remains a rarity. It is long past time for the\u00a0BBC Proms<\/a>\u00a0to feature G\u00e1l, and it seems crazy that more orchestras aren’t racing to programme his compelling symphonies or his beguiling concertos for Violin, Cello or Piano. There is still much to be done.<\/p>\n