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Eric Zeisl, a renowned Viennese composer who fled to California in 1939 to escape the Holocaust, finished Piano Concerto in C Major shortly before he died in 1959.
It has never been performed.
On May 1 this half-century-old composition will see its world debut when it is performed by the Saratoga Symphony, which includes musicians from Saratoga, Los Gatos, San Jose and Sunnyvale.
Zeisl's daughter, who is married to the son of Arnold Schoenburg, another composer who immigrated to the United States around 1939, provided the Saratoga Symphony with a copy of the handwritten manuscript to Piano Concerto in C Major. Saratoga resident Robert Feigelson, a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University, transcribed the manuscript into a printed score via the computer program Sibelius with the help of Stanford music student David Nunez. The score was then edited by Professor Malcolm Cole, a Zeisl scholar and author from UCLA.
"This material, after further detailed editing, will be supplied to the Doblinger Press for publication and a follow-up concert in Vienna at the end of the year," Feigelson says.
The Saratoga Symphony was founded by Dr. Jason Klein in 1987. He remains the group's music director and conductor and is also the music director of the Youth Orchestras of Southern Alameda County. Klein is a graduate of Stanford.
This special concert will be presented on May 1 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Sanctuary, 13601 Saratoga Ave. in Saratoga, at 3 p.m. The concert is free, as is the parking, although donations are welcome.
For more information, contact Bob Sheets at 408.252.4011 or visit www.saratogasymphony.com.
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