One cannot definitively state that Aldo Finzi was murdered by Mussolini. What is certain: the Fascist leader and the state he created did not contribute to Finzi’s health and well-being. Quite the contrary.
Born in Milan in February 4, 1987, Finzi died February 7, 1945, of a heart attack. He did not have a history of heart disease. In fact, his family lived long, active lives. One could say Aldo Finzi died of a broken spirit that began with a sense of loss and betrayal and was exacerbated by the daily pressures of living on the run, moving from one hiding place to another while simultaneously striving to provide succor and support for his wife and their son and daughter. Throughout his trials and terrors, Finzi resisted despair, remaining loyal to his muse.
As a composer, he took every opportunity to work at his art, aware of the risks involved. It was a matter of necessity, his family’s only source of income as well as his emotional support. It would also prove a lifeline for his wife and children when they hurriedly fled their hiding place in advance of arrest by the Gestapo. It was a January night and they were stranded outside without their winter coats against the bitter cold. Finzi had gone to work earlier that day in an empty concert hall that was made available to him through the kindness of a friend, who stood guard at the gate. Suddenly, Bruno Finzi, his son, heard the strains of his father’s music. The family rushed toward it. Safely reunited, they continued their struggle for survival in a time and place that demanded their deaths.
Among Italian Jews, Finzi is a common surname. Aldo Finzi’s family had roots in Mantua and were musically inclined. One aunt was a famed opera singer. His father, a lawyer, wanted his son to study law and he obeyed his father’s wishes, earning a law degree from the University in Pavia. At the same time, he was so drawn to music, he studied it on his own and became so learned that he gained entrance into the highly respected Conservatorio de St. Cecilia in Rome. There, he earned a diploma in composition.
Finzi’s talents as a composer and lyricist were soon recognized. By 1931, his published works were already listed in Ricordi’s catalogue. They included compositions for voices and orchestra, symphonic poems, a sonata, a string quartet, a concerto, and a comic opera. In 1937, La Scala, one of the world’s most famous opera houses, announced a competition for a new opera. It was to be produced the following season. Finzi submitted his “La Serenata al Vento” (A Song to the Wind). He was thrilled when a colleague, who was one of the jurors, revealed that his was the winning entry. However, the congratulatory letter Finzi expected never arrived. By 1938, racism had cast a pall on Mussolini’s Italy. The Fascist government made it impossible for La Scala to grant the justly deserved prize to a Jew. That September, Italy’s Racial Laws were promulgated.
Mussolini’s Racial Laws which followed, by three years, Germany’s Nuremberg Laws nullified the civil rights of Jews. Increasingly, they excluded Jews from schools and professions, and deprived Jews of all they had worked to obtain. In the wake of forced retirements and exclusions, new opportunities opened for “racially superior” Italians, and the populace realized that the Racial Laws were proving extremely profitable. This served to increase the anti-Judaism that the Church had established at its inception. Anti-Semitism, which had been latent in the Italian Republic, and even in Mussolini’s early reign, was now a serious and existential threat for Jews.
The brain drain that followed the promulgation of Germany’s Racial Laws, and sent many of Germany’s most brilliant minds in the sciences and humanities fleeing for sanctuary, would have its parallel in Italy. Among others, physicist Enrico Fermi (whose wife was Jewish) and conductor Arturo Toscanini (whose son-in-law, Vladamir Horowitz, was a Jew) fled to America. In recognition of Aldo Finzi’s great abilities, the composer was offered a position at the University of Chicago and a house nearby. Unfortunately, Finzi could not afford to purchase tickets for his wife and children. A thoroughly devoted husband and father, he would not leave them behind.
Because of the Racial Laws, Jews faced great difficulties in finding employment. Finzi scurried to support himself and his family. With the help of Italian colleagues, he continued to work in music, although in positions far below his abilities and often in distant cities, separated from his family. Nor did he always have the musical instruments, necessary for composing, at his disposal. The strain was considerable.
Still, Finzi persevered. The intellectual and physical stamina that had allowed him to simultaneously pursue two separate courses of study in his youth remained. The talented composer had the rare gift of combining tradition with modernity, melody with atonality. He composed his own lyrics as well as music. He also published under pseudonyms and also anonymously. To hear Finzi’s compositions is to be haunted by the beautiful music that belies the terrifying events he endured. Among those was the loss of his name. Even at his death, he was buried under a pseudonym. Only after the war would his true identity be restored. His wife had him disinterred and buried as a Jew among his ancestors.
Increasingly, racial laws continued to be passed, limiting opportunities and mobility for Jews. Restrictions and special taxes were imposed. By April 1942, Jews were prohibited from the use of musical and theatrical materials. In July 1943, Germany invaded Italy, and by November, Italian police were ordered to arrest Jews living in Italy and in areas under Italian control. By 1944, Jewish property and assets were nationalized. Jews had lost all their rights, even the right to life. Nearly 10,000 Italian Jews were deported, mostly in Auschwitz. Few would survive.
Finzi was arrested twice. The first time he “escaped.” In Italy, one could often bribe one’s way out of prison. The second time, Finzi offered himself up in exchange for his son. It was an act of courage, hope and heroism. There were no guarantees that Bruno would be freed or that ultimately he himself would. Miraculously, they were.
In 1944, Finzi wrote the “Prelude and Fugue for Organ” as an expression of gratitude to God. He wrote it under his own name. In that same year, one of his last compositions, quite possibly his very last, was his “Psalm for Chorus and Orchestra.” In it, the composer praised God for allowing his son and himself to survive arrest. Shortly thereafter Finzi died. His deathbed wish was to have his music performed.
The first Jews in Italy were sent by Judah Maccabee to the Roman Senate. So it was something of a Chanukah miracle that during Chanukah, more than seven decades after Finzi’s passing, his last wish was realized. The beleaguered composer’s music was performed in two different settings during the holiday.
On the first day of Chanukah, pianist and musicologist Simonetta Heger, who serves on the faculty of the Milan Conservatory and has acted assiduously to bring attention to Aldo Finzi, related the life of the composer and performed a selection of his works at a recital at Montclair State University. Joining her were soprano Elizabeth Hertzberg and Gabriel Negri, an Italian hasid who is a classical violinist. On the sixth night of Chanukah, secular and hasidic Jews, as well as non-Jews of every ethnicity, came to Carnegie Hall to hear Finzi’s music and lyrics performed by these same artists as well as several others, along with the Garden State Symphony. The audience not only listened to Finzi’s music, they learned about a man of many strengths, a hero for our time and all time. And miracle of miracles, among those present at the concert was Aldo Finzi, the son of Bruno, wrested from the Gestapo by an amazing man. He proudly bears the name of his grandfather, a musical genius who was, like Judah Maccabee, a great man of courage and conviction.
By Barbara Wind
Barbara Wind is the director of the Holocaust Center of Greater MetroWest.
