FROM THE HISTORY OF 20th CENTURY POPULAR MUSIC IN LITHUANIA: RECONSTRUCTING BIOGRAPHY OF VIOLINIST DANIEL POMERANZ (1904–1981)

Abstract

The name of the violinist Daniel Pomeranz (1904–1981) is inseparable from the musical life of Kaunas as temporary capital of independent Lithuania. Having studied in the State Academic University of Music and Stern Conservatory of Music in Berlin mastering classical violin repertoire, he combined romantic virtuoso pieces and entertainment music in his performances. The Pomeranz ensemble played fashionable dances and schlagers in the Konrad’s cafe, a favorite of the Kaunas bohemians, and is associated with the beginnings of jazz in Lithuania. However, to this day his life and work, like that of most other Lithuanian Jewish musicians, has not yet been thoroughly explored. The article presents for the first-time ongoing research into Pomeranz’s biography, based on the documents found in different Lithuanian archives, the Archive of the University of the Arts Berlin, the Arolsen Archives, as well press reviews, memories of contemporaries of Pomeranz and of his daughter Dana Pomerants-Mazurkevich. Since Pomeranz lived in different political systems starting with the Russian empire, the independent Lithuania, the Germany of Weimar Republic, then under Soviet, Nazi and again Soviet occupational regimes and eventually emigrated to Canada, details of his biography were lost, and confl icting information was found in the existing documents. All of it is included in the research as a significant testimony of the complex history of the 20th century, and as possible human eff orts to protect their own story, since the discovered information differs depending on the context and time where, when and for whom it was provided.