Peter Gellhorn | The Musical Legacy

This video shows excerpts from the interview. The full interview can be viewed on request at the Royal College of Music Library.

In this informal interview filmed by Geraldine Auerbach MBE for the International Centre for Suppressed Music at his home in South London, Peter is going through a pile of his compositions with Martin Anderson, publisher and record producer and Betty Sagon Collick – amezzo soprano who sang under his baton in the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1945-46. He talks about his studies in Berlin and his early career before the Nazis came to power. Anecdotes include his change of name, his musical experiences of internment, conducting his first Traviata on the day of his wedding, and Russian and Nazi inexplicable brutality and cruelty.

Pianist, conductor, chorusmaster and composer 
October 24 1912 Breslau - February 13 2004 London

This interview is presented as part of the ORAL HISTORY PROJECT "Singing a Song in a Foreign Land", which focuses on musicians who emigrated from Central Europe because of Nazi persecution in the 1930s and 40s.

Visit the SINGING A SONG IN A FOREIGN LAND - ONLINE RESOURCE for more interviews and further information:

http://www.rcm.ac.uk/singingasong

This project has been generously supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Rothschild Foundation