Exile / 1939-1945

When Helfritz went into Chilean exile in 1939, this started the second and perhaps most creative phase of composition in his life. But the tragedy of German music in exile was the loss of the favorable contexts in which music is being created. Santiago de Chile between 1939 and 1959 was not Berlin in the 1920’s. Continuity to the times in Berlin was hardly possible for Helfritz, as for others.

Despite this, the foreign surroundings inspired new, original works from the composers. In South America, he jotted down measures that he would use in later works. He collected pentatonic melodies from native tribes in Bolivia and Peru, with which materials he created a comprehensive 14-piece cycle for piano he published under the title of Aru Amunyas.

In Chile Hans Helfritz met many musicians, including the conductor Hermann Scherchen who promoted Helfritz’s work, not least by publishing the Konzert für Tenorsaxophon und Orchester and the Konzert für Orgel und Streichorchester (Organ Concert) through his own music publishing house, Ars Viva.

Back in Europe / 1959-1995

As Hans Helfritz was unable to reconnect to the German music scene, he focussed his energies on traveling activities, books and lectures, only composing occasionally. When he did, it was especially for musicians with whom he was friendly, like the Prague Duo, who he had met during a lecture tour and to whom he dedicated Balearische Impressionen für Xylophon und Klavier (Balearic Impressions for Xylophone and Piano, 1979).

One of his last compositions is the spirited drum suite Vier Fantastische Impressionen aus Mittelamerika für Schlagzeug (Four Fantastic Impressions from Central America for Percussion, 1990) was composed in Sant Agustí on Ibiza and was filmed/recorded by the West German Broadcasting (WDR) television station. Even in this late work, the composer once again returned to his memories of South and Central American rhythms.

The works of Hans Helfritz have never been commercially recorded. But there are concert outtakes from Chile and the post-war period in Europe, the television recordings of German broadcasters and a privately published CD in June of 1995. At the same time, many of his works have never been performed. The scores can be found in the Hans Helfritz Archive at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.

Music Ethnologist

Hans Helfritz, who had taken courses in Comparative Musicology with Professor Erich von Hornbostel, traveled through Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia in 1930 and returned with photos and audio recordings for the Berlin Phonogram Archive. Among them are herdsmen’s songs, bridal melodies and instrumental music of the Bedouin peoples.

Prof. von Hornbostel inspired a further journey, which would turn out to be the most important of his life. In Hadramaut and in what was then the Kingdom of Yemen, Helfritz recorded Bedouin songs of which no other recordings existed at that time. The music, recorded onto wax rollers, was analyzed by Professor von Hornbostel and Robert Lachmann who published their findings in the 1933 essay Asiatische Parallelen zur Berbermusik (Asian parallels to Berber music). It provides evidence of parallels between the music of South Arabia and that of the Berber in North Africa. These recordings were the most important contribution that Hans Helfritz made to the field of music ethnology.

The music that he collected in Central and South America did not end up serving science, but instead provided the basis for his film music and compositions, like the piano cycle Aru Amunyas.

Hans Helfritz only traveled as a music ethnologist one last time, when he visited Ethiopia in the 1960’s (Harmonia Mundi, HM 1715).