George Dreyfus’s lifelong love of Germany

The geography of George Dreyfus’s life has certainly been shaped by many border crossings, by returns and departures and re-returns: “I have always crossed borders, sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly, crossing from Germany to England and then to Australia in 1939, crossing from Australia to Italy and then back to Germany in 1954 [sic: 1955], and countless times thereafter.”

The first line of the lyrics for Hildegaard Kneff’s poignantly evocative song “Und ich dreh’ mich nochmal um” (And I turn around again) echoes the ambivalence of yearning for what has been lost, of all those turnings about, though yearning is not all that defines the complexities of George’s relationship with Germany.

As a musician and a composer George committed to the highest ideals of Central European classical music, the heritage of his German homeland. But his ambition “to keep himself alive in Australia solely by writing music” has also entailed many creative departures: “I had to split myself, I had to do anything that came along. “From Schoenbergian high art to popularist realism.”

For George, then, “departure” was more than a physical activity but a state of mind, a creative position. He applies the metaphor of border crossing to his creative outputs too: [M]y symphonies cross with my suites of film music . . . my operas cross with my Pram Factory-inspired musicals . . . my high-art and ideologically committed Didjeridu Sextet crosses with the light hearted ditties of the Galgenlieder.

It was not a compromise that came without cost: “The serious music people only like my popular music . . . The popular music people only like my serious music . . . One should not underestimate Australia too easily, a huge country with huge areas without mountains, with huge heat without rain, with huge inner strength, which an artist with a foreign, brought-with-his-own culture can hardly overcome.”

Successful migration usually involves adaptation, and at one level George has succeeded in accommodating the challenges of Australian cultural life through his much-vaunted capacity for Anpassen (adjusting). Like [ German folk character] Till Eulenspiegel, George likes to dart about a bit, avoiding seriousness and any discussion of his feelings.

There are those who have characterised George as someone wearing a mask of extroverted adaptability that has provided “the sometimes impenetrable barrier disguising the private inner search for the deeper cultural meanings of his heritage.”

He likes to compare himself to Zelig, that chameleon-like character from a 1983 film by Woody Allen, a person “who wants to fit in with every group he comes in contact with” and takes on the characteristics of the strong personalities around him.

But, as is so often the case with people who speak two languages, we may detect signs of cross-cultural interference.

George’s dedication to amateur and community music-making is very real but his European training has made him a hard task-master and his approach is not always appreciated by Australian musicians. On one memorable occasion, an entire choir walked out of a rehearsal in protest. On the other hand, his acquired self-deprecating Australian larrikinism and apparent lack of seriousness often disconcert his German audiences.

It is well-established in the migration literature that involuntary migration often makes adjustment in the new homeland more difficult.

In George’s case, his departure from Germany is connected to the Holocaust, an event that attracts and repels him in equal measure, drawing him back to Germany but ensuring that he is happy to leave, fuelling his intellectual life, feeding his creativity, defining his worldview.

George is a man who lives comfortably with duality: “I am entitled to point to my further uniqueness as a half German-Australian composer of half German-Australian music”.

This article is an extract from “Und ich dreh’ mich nochmal um” (Hildegaard Kneff): George Dreyfus, Germany, and the Revolving Door of Return by Kay Dreyfus with Jonathan Dreyfus, published in When Migrants Fail to Stay: New Histories on Departures and Migration edited by Ruth Balint, Joy Damousi and Sheil Fitzpatrick and published by Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.

Kay Dreyfus and Jonathan Dreyfus will host a conversation with George Dreyfus AM on 7 November at 6.30pm at the Lamm Jewish Library of Australia. Bookings here.