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fter
than 50 years
as a Detroit
Symphony
Orchestra
violinist,
Felix Resnick
is temporari-
ly putting his
AARON HALABE
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS fiddle away
and is head-
ing for the library. The
music library.
Mr. Resnick, 74, is on
a one-year leave from his
performance duties and
is assuming a new role
as a musical archeolo-
gist. He hopes to uncover
a large collection of near-
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ly forgotten orchestral
music that lays hidden
in music libraries and
archives around the
country. Ultimately, he
anticipates that many of
his "finds" will be per-
formed by the DSO and
the two ensembles he
conducts — the Birm-
ingham-Bloomfield
Symphony and the
Grosse Pointe Symphony.
His self-funded re-
search will concentrate
on "unusual" symphonic
works written by obscure
and well-known com-
posers. Mr. Resnick says
the music is rarely, if
ever, performed and he's
hard-pressed to explain
why. "It's hard to say
why this material is not
played. What some musi-
cians will tell you is that
it does not deserve to be
played. That is not usu-
ally the case, but some-
times it's true."
He says the research
effort can be a tedious
and dusty task, requir-
ing a time-consuming
analysis of thousands of
scores. On a recent trip
to the Fleischer Library
in Philadelphia, he
uncovered more than 30
works by Rimsky-
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Korsakov, Paderewski,
Sibelius, Kodaly, Mar-
tinu, Barber and others.
His travels will take
him to prestigious facili-
ties, including the
Eastman School of Music
in Rochester, N.Y., and
the Peabody Conserv-
atory in Baltimore.
"There is music all over
this country that is hid-
den away and hardly
ever used," he says. "So
there's a lot to be found
if you take the time to
research."
As a conductor, Mr.
Resnick admits that it
will be "risky" to program
and perform some of his
discoveries. "To get the
right pieces to comple-
ment each other is a real
challenge when you're pro-
gramming. Sometimes
you're walking on eggs
when you perform music
that's risky or difficult to
comprehend on one hear-
ing.
"But you've got to play
contemporary music every
now and then and fit it in
some way. You're going to
miss some interesting
music if you don't at least
try."
Mr. Resnick's interest in
conducting was piqued in
the late 1940's during his
early tenure with the
DSO. His conducting
teacher at the Juilliard
School of Music was Fritz
Mahler, the nephew of
famed German-Jewish
composer Gustav Mahler.
In 1951, after returning
from Juilliard, Mr.
Resnick began a two-year
stint as conductor of the
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