Politics and Art in an Era of Social Upheaval

In an interview with the British documentarist Hugo Berkeley, David Waghalter Green places his grandfather’s conception of the socially-committed artist within the context of the political upheavals of the 1930s and the twentieth century as a whole.

Waghalter’s “Remembrance”

In September 1941 Ignatz Waghalter was living in New York City, in an apartment on Central Park West and 100th Street. Four …

Beatrice Waghalter (1913-2001)

Beatrice Waghalter, the second of Ignatz Waghalter’s two children, was born in Berlin on December 18, 1913. The early years of Beatrice …

Preserving the Legacy of My Grandfather, Ignatz Waghalter

By David Waghalter Green

“For me, the recovery of Waghalter’s music has made possible, in a profoundly personal sense, a deeper understanding of my grandfather. His music reveals a man of intense and fluctuating emotions. Despite all the difficulties that he encountered in his life, Waghalter’s view of the world was essentially optimistic, hopeful and idealistic.”

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Welcome to waghalter.com

This purpose of this web site is to reawaken interest in the life and work of Ignatz Waghalter (1881-1949), the Polish-German and Jewish composer and conductor who has recently been described as “one of the most unjustly forgotten musicians of interwar Europe.”

Drawing upon a substantial archive of written documents, musical scores, photographs, old recordings and press clippings – which Waghalter himself managed to save when he fled Europe in 1937 – this site will make available to readers and researchers remarkable material relating to both to Waghalter and the times in which he lived.

This site will also keep viewers informed about events and developments in the unfolding story of the rediscovery of Waghalter’s extraordinary legacy as a composer, conductor, writer and politically-engaged artist.