Hyfler/Rosner
2007-07-11 04:10:31 UTC
Natalia Karp
Telegraph 11/07/2007
Natalia Karp, the pianist who died on Monday aged 96,
survived the Holocaust because the commandant of the Plaszow
concentration camp in Poland, to which she was sent, wanted
some musical entertainment for his birthday.
Summoned the day she arrived, expecting to be shot,
Natalia, then a beautiful 32-year-old, played Chopin's
haunting and melancholic Nocturne in C sharp minor. When she
had finished, Amon Goeth, the commandant, declared: Sie soll
leben (She shall live).
"I was taken to his villa where there was a party with
many guests eating, drinking and dressed in white jackets,"
she recalled. "After a while, Goeth turned to me and barked:
'Now. Sarah. Play now'." (The Nazis called all Jewish women
"Sarah").
At the time she had not touched a piano since the
oubreak of war, and her fingers were almost stiff.
When Goeth, who was chillingly depicted by Ralph
Fiennes in the film Schindler's List (1993), told Natalia
that she would live, the pianist stood her ground, insisting
that her sister Helena should also be spared. She was
subsequently ordered to play for Goeth and other senior
Nazis on several occasions.
But her ordeal was not over. After 10 months she was
sent to Auschwitz, where she fully expected to die.
"My sister and I clung to each other. We scavenged for
any food we could find. Every day we thought could be our
last."
Her identity number - A27407 - was branded on to her
forearm, and never disappeared. Many years later it was
spotted by a guest at a reception in London who tactlessly
asked: "What have you put here - your telephone number?"
Natalia was released from imprisonment the day after
VE Day, and returned to Krakow with her sister, a ballerina.
When she gave her first post-war performance of
Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No 1, with its triumphant
opening chords, she recalled thinking: "I wanted to show the
Nazis that I was not beaten."
She was born Natalia Weissman in Krakow, Poland, on
February 27 1911, the second of four children. Her father,
Isidor, was a wealthy businessman; her mother sang opera
arias at home.
Natalia's prowess as a pianist - she played by ear -
was soon well known in the neighbourhood; one day, when she
was four, a lady came to the door to say she had heard that
there was a child prodigy in the house and offering to teach
her.
Natalia disliked the pressure to give concerts,
however, and later began to take lessons with Arthur
Rubenstein's brother-in-law instead. In 1920 she played at a
wedding in Berlin, where she was kissed by Boris Pasternak's
mother.
When she was 15, Natalia's grandfather, also a gifted
musician, decreed that she should return to Berlin, alone,
to take lessons with Artur Schnabel. She recalled that the
Austrian was "serious, cynical and funny". His son taught
her harmony and theory.
Later she developed her technique with Georg Bertram,
and at 18 played Chopin's E minor concerto with the Berlin
Philharmonic under Heinz Bongartz. But when her mother died
a few months later Natalia abandoned her career and returned
to Krakow to take care of her family.
In 1933 she married Julius Hubler, a lawyer, pianist
and music critic who was to be killed on the first day of
the war when his train was bombed, though she did not learn
of his death until some years later.
She was captured with two friends and her younger
sister, Helena, as they tried to flee the Tarnow ghetto in
Poland on false papers, and sent by the Gestapo to be shot
at Plaszow.
After the war she met and married Josef Karpf, a
counsellor at the Treasury in Warsaw. He was posted to the
Polish Embassy in London, but when he was recalled in 1950
the couple stayed put, claiming asylum in Britain.
Gradually she resumed her performing career in
Britain, though when she settled at Hampstead her neighbours
would tolerate only two hours' practice in the morning so
that she had to to go to friends' homes to get in a further
three hours. It was during this time that she dropped the
"f" from her name for professional purposes.
Although she could frequently be heard playing
Beethoven and Schubert, Natalia Karp always had a special
affection for the music of Chopin, whose music she played at
the Wigmore Hall and other venues.
Her playing was described as "essentially feminine",
with critics admiring her "mellow tone and intuitively
musical phrasing", particularly in her compatriot's more
intimately reflective pieces.
In 1967 she played for Oskar Schindler, whom she had
not previously met, when he received the Martin Buber Prize.
She also formed the Alpha Piano Trio with Regina Schein
(cello) and Henriette Canter (violin).
When she played, Natalia Karp often placed a shell
pink handkerchief on her piano as a symbol of luxury and
femininity, something of which she had dreamed in the
concentration camps and which, after her release, she had
bought for a few pennies in Warsaw in 1946.
Natalia Karp never truly retired from public
performance, although her pace did slow in later years.
In January 2005 she was the subject of a moving
profile by David Cohen in the London Evening Standard. She
played the Chopin Nocturne that had saved her life for her
interviewer.
"The room is awash with notes, gentle and sad beyond
words," he wrote. "In Natalia's half-shut eyes I can see
that she is far away."
Natalia Karp's husband died in 1993. She is survived
by her two daughters, one of whom, Anne, is a journalist on
the Guardian.
Telegraph 11/07/2007
Natalia Karp, the pianist who died on Monday aged 96,
survived the Holocaust because the commandant of the Plaszow
concentration camp in Poland, to which she was sent, wanted
some musical entertainment for his birthday.
Summoned the day she arrived, expecting to be shot,
Natalia, then a beautiful 32-year-old, played Chopin's
haunting and melancholic Nocturne in C sharp minor. When she
had finished, Amon Goeth, the commandant, declared: Sie soll
leben (She shall live).
"I was taken to his villa where there was a party with
many guests eating, drinking and dressed in white jackets,"
she recalled. "After a while, Goeth turned to me and barked:
'Now. Sarah. Play now'." (The Nazis called all Jewish women
"Sarah").
At the time she had not touched a piano since the
oubreak of war, and her fingers were almost stiff.
When Goeth, who was chillingly depicted by Ralph
Fiennes in the film Schindler's List (1993), told Natalia
that she would live, the pianist stood her ground, insisting
that her sister Helena should also be spared. She was
subsequently ordered to play for Goeth and other senior
Nazis on several occasions.
But her ordeal was not over. After 10 months she was
sent to Auschwitz, where she fully expected to die.
"My sister and I clung to each other. We scavenged for
any food we could find. Every day we thought could be our
last."
Her identity number - A27407 - was branded on to her
forearm, and never disappeared. Many years later it was
spotted by a guest at a reception in London who tactlessly
asked: "What have you put here - your telephone number?"
Natalia was released from imprisonment the day after
VE Day, and returned to Krakow with her sister, a ballerina.
When she gave her first post-war performance of
Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No 1, with its triumphant
opening chords, she recalled thinking: "I wanted to show the
Nazis that I was not beaten."
She was born Natalia Weissman in Krakow, Poland, on
February 27 1911, the second of four children. Her father,
Isidor, was a wealthy businessman; her mother sang opera
arias at home.
Natalia's prowess as a pianist - she played by ear -
was soon well known in the neighbourhood; one day, when she
was four, a lady came to the door to say she had heard that
there was a child prodigy in the house and offering to teach
her.
Natalia disliked the pressure to give concerts,
however, and later began to take lessons with Arthur
Rubenstein's brother-in-law instead. In 1920 she played at a
wedding in Berlin, where she was kissed by Boris Pasternak's
mother.
When she was 15, Natalia's grandfather, also a gifted
musician, decreed that she should return to Berlin, alone,
to take lessons with Artur Schnabel. She recalled that the
Austrian was "serious, cynical and funny". His son taught
her harmony and theory.
Later she developed her technique with Georg Bertram,
and at 18 played Chopin's E minor concerto with the Berlin
Philharmonic under Heinz Bongartz. But when her mother died
a few months later Natalia abandoned her career and returned
to Krakow to take care of her family.
In 1933 she married Julius Hubler, a lawyer, pianist
and music critic who was to be killed on the first day of
the war when his train was bombed, though she did not learn
of his death until some years later.
She was captured with two friends and her younger
sister, Helena, as they tried to flee the Tarnow ghetto in
Poland on false papers, and sent by the Gestapo to be shot
at Plaszow.
After the war she met and married Josef Karpf, a
counsellor at the Treasury in Warsaw. He was posted to the
Polish Embassy in London, but when he was recalled in 1950
the couple stayed put, claiming asylum in Britain.
Gradually she resumed her performing career in
Britain, though when she settled at Hampstead her neighbours
would tolerate only two hours' practice in the morning so
that she had to to go to friends' homes to get in a further
three hours. It was during this time that she dropped the
"f" from her name for professional purposes.
Although she could frequently be heard playing
Beethoven and Schubert, Natalia Karp always had a special
affection for the music of Chopin, whose music she played at
the Wigmore Hall and other venues.
Her playing was described as "essentially feminine",
with critics admiring her "mellow tone and intuitively
musical phrasing", particularly in her compatriot's more
intimately reflective pieces.
In 1967 she played for Oskar Schindler, whom she had
not previously met, when he received the Martin Buber Prize.
She also formed the Alpha Piano Trio with Regina Schein
(cello) and Henriette Canter (violin).
When she played, Natalia Karp often placed a shell
pink handkerchief on her piano as a symbol of luxury and
femininity, something of which she had dreamed in the
concentration camps and which, after her release, she had
bought for a few pennies in Warsaw in 1946.
Natalia Karp never truly retired from public
performance, although her pace did slow in later years.
In January 2005 she was the subject of a moving
profile by David Cohen in the London Evening Standard. She
played the Chopin Nocturne that had saved her life for her
interviewer.
"The room is awash with notes, gentle and sad beyond
words," he wrote. "In Natalia's half-shut eyes I can see
that she is far away."
Natalia Karp's husband died in 1993. She is survived
by her two daughters, one of whom, Anne, is a journalist on
the Guardian.
--
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