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Carlo Taube was a virtuoso pianist. He studied with Busoni in Vienna for some time. He played in cafes and night clubs, first in Vienna and later in Brno and Prague, to earn a living. With his wife Erika and their child, he arrived at Terezín in December, 1941. There Taube led concerts of semi-classical music, very much in the style of the "spa" orchestras popular in pre-war Europe, in the musical pavilion in the neglected park on the Terezín square. He also gave ambitious piano concerts, probably overly-ambitious, according to some critics in the crowd. Taube composed a number of works in Terezin, but only one survives, the song “Ein Jüdisches Kind”, composed on 4 November 1942, set to a text by his wife, Erika. This short but moving work has some Hebraic elements in its melodic writing, while its simple but effective harmonies are reminiscent of what may have been Taube’s piano style in the clubs. Both the poem and music are a touching tribute to their own Jewish child, who accompanied his parents to Auschwitz in October 1944, where they perished. [Source: http://www.leonarda.com/program-notes/note342.html]
