With the death of George Jellinek, reported earlier this week, the musical history book of the 20th century has closed. Born in Hungary 1919, his parents put him on the last ship carrying emigrees out of harm’s way as the Nazi fist clenched around the throat of Europe. The ship went to Cuba.

The story of Jellinek’s survival and the strange road that brought him from Havana to New York’s musical scene, where he became director of the city’s classical music station and eventually host of a long-running opera program, are chronicled in his book My Road to Radio And The Vocal Scene: Memoir of an Opera Commentator.

I was honored to represent Jellinek on publication of his erudite History through the Opera Glass. For all of us for whom he was a fixture on the radio – the charming, witty and unmistakeably continental voice of an era wiped out by the Second World War – his passing is profoundly saddening. Tributes paid to him over the radio use the same word again and again: George Jellinek was a gentleman.

Below, an all too streamlined summary of a rich life, taken from his autobiography:

Born in Ujpest, Hungary, in 1919, George Jellinek began his musical career playing violin with gypsies in the family’s garden restaurant. He spent his adolescence doing much the same, honing his talent and enriching his own musical education with frequent trips to the Hungarian Royal Opera House. But when Hitler and Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact in 1938, Jellinek’s quiet life was shattered. How the exiled teenager survived World War II, worked his way up from a poor Hungarian immigrant in Cuba and became one of the most important and influential musical administrators in New York is an unconventional but truly American success story.

This memoir documents the inspiring life of George Jellinek, beginning with his childhood in his beloved Hungary. The crisis of World War II soon invaded his life and, leaving behind his family and homeland, he fled west. Having been finally allowed to enter the United States, he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942, obligated to bear arms against the country of his birth. This ironic turn of events culminated in his firsthand role in the capture of Ferenc Szálasi, the leader of Hungary’s Hitlerite faction.

The latter half of the book reveals how music helped Jellinek piece back together his broken life in America. After rising to the post of musical director for radio station WQXR, he went on to become the producer and host of The Vocal Scene. His 36 years with that program established it as a revered fixture of New York’s opera life.

The epilogue documents the day on which Hungary’s president bestowed upon Jellinek the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary.

RC