Forbidden Music Regained


Leo Smit Stichting
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Composers persecuted in WWII

During the Second World War, many composers were persecuted by the Nazi’s, because they either had a Jewish background or refused to comply with Nazi rules. Their music was banned from all public performance. The Leo Smit Foundation, founded in 1996, is committed to regain this music.

In more than 200 concerts, we’ve brought to life music that was lost and forgotten. With this website, we share with musicians, programmers and music lovers worldwide what we’ve found, starting with music from composers who lived and worked in the Netherlands.

Here you can search for composers, works for various instrumentations or vocal repertoire. Find scores, look at manuscripts and listen to sound samples.

featured composer

Daniel Belinfante

Daniel Belinfante (1893 - 1945)

Daniel Belinfante's manuscripts, donated in 1955 to the Dutch Music Institute in The Hague by his widow Martha Belinfante-Dekker, remained untouched for decades. It is an oeuvre of some 100 compositions consisting of solo concertos, an orchestral suite, string quartets, works for strings and piano, songs and choral works. During his lifetime, Belinfante's music was rarely performed. After his violent death in Fürstengrube, a subcamp of Auschwitz, it would take sixty years before …   more

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