An accomplished pianist, conductor, and composer, Carlo Taube was born on 4 July 1897 in Galicia. Though trained as a concert pianist – he studied for several years with Ferruccio Busoni in Vienna – economic pressures forced the young Taube to seek employment in cafés and nightclubs in inter-war Vienna and later in Brno and Prague. In December 1941, Taube was deported to Theresienstadt with his wife and child. While in the camp, he gave several piano recitals and conducted semi-classical outdoor concerts on Terezín square. Ironically, internment provided Taube with the opportunity to devote more time to composition than he had previously been able to do. While imprisoned he undertook an ambitious (and not uniformly well-received) composition project that he called The Terezín Symphony; the score has not survived. He also composed several other short works that were not preserved, including Poem, Caprice, and Meditation for violin and piano and Ghetto Suite for orchestra and alto. The only composition of Taube’s that survived Theresienstadt was a lullaby for soprano and piano titled Ein Jüdisches Kind (A Jewish child, 1942), a moving song in which parents express love for their child for whom they are unable to provide a home. Taube was killed in Auschwitz on 11 October 1944.
Source
Joža Karas, Music in Terezín 1941–1945, second edition (New York: Pendragon Press, 2008).
