Henry Jolles

Henry Jolles (28 November 1902 - 16 July 1965), born Heinz-Frederic Jolles, was a German pianist and composer. Uprooted from his native Germany by the rise of Nazism, he spent his last quarter-century in Brazil.

Jolles was born in Berlin to Dr. Oscar Jolles and his wife, Gertrude, née Sternberg. She, at least, was Jewish. The family evidently was prosperous; Oscar, who had received a degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Jena University in 1886, was president and majority owner of the large printing and publishing company H. Berthold AG, and near the end of World War I the Kingdom of Württemberg would honor him with the Wilhelmkreuz, a recently created civilian decoration for merit in the war effort, for his management of that company’s metals business. Henry Jolles at age six played for the celebrated virtuoso and composer Eugen d’Albert, who subsequently greatly influenced the boy’s musical development. After studying piano with Artur Schnabel and Edwin Fischer and composition with Paul Juon and, privately, with Kurt Weill, Jolles began to develop a successful performing career in the 1920s. His academic career also flourished, bringing appointment as professor at the Cologne Music Academy in 1928, at which point he moved from Berlin-Charlottenburg to Cologne.

The ascendency of the Nazis brought an abrupt halt to this progress and several years of disruptions. In 1933, the regime directed Jolles's dismissal from his Academy position, and by 1934 Jolles had moved to Paris to escape persecution. There, he had some success in re-establishing his performing career and, in 1940 or 1941, married Elisabeth Henriette Sauty de Chalon, but with the fall of France in 1940, Jolles came back into danger from the German occupation. Luck was with him, however, as he received assistance from the American Varian Fry. Jolles thereby secured an entry permit into Brazil and was able to flee France aboard a freighter from Marseille in 1942. Once in Brazil, he settled in São Paulo and changed his name from “Heinz” to “Henry.” His mother and sister died in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943.

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