Three outstanding Polish-Jewish composers who established their careers in Berlin, escaped to the US after Hitler’s rise to power, and died in New York. World premiere recording of the First String Quartet of Ignace Strasfogel, the “child prodigy of the Weimar Republic”.

The string quartet genre has already once before been in the spotlight in the “Poland Abroad” series. With works by Joachim Mendelson, Roman Padlewski, and Simon Laks (EDA34), the focus was on the fate of three Polish composers who became victims of the National Socialists’ policy of persecution and annihilation because their life circumstances did not provide a lifeline for flight and exile. With the present recording, we turn our attention to the works and biographies of three Polish-Jewish musicians who were spared ghetto, concentration camp and violent death thanks to timely emigration, and who are linked by decisive biographical details. All three were born in Poland at a time in which the Polish state had not yet been re-established. All three built careers in Berlin. All three managed to reach a safe harbour in the USA after Hitler’s seizure of power, and were active in New York until the end of their lives.