Video of Boas Bischofwerder's Phantasia Judaica, in a new arrangement for string quartet by Joseph Toltz.

Date	10th August 2017
URL	https://vimeo.com/237390795#t=767s
Format	Video

Cantor Boas Bischofswerder arrived in London with his family in 1935 from Berlin and took a post at the Great Gardens St Synagogue. His arrest and deportation in June 1940 was a terrible shock, and his son Felix voluntarily accompanied him on the HMT Dunera. Conditions on the ship were appalling, with Jewish ‘enemy aliens’ persecuted by the British soldiers. Phantasia Judaica is the only surviving composition written on that journey - originally set for cantor and three-part choir, the words were lost. My arrangement reconstructs the work in string quartet format. The video features Benjamin Adler (Violin I), Charlotte Fetherston (Viola) and Joseph Eisinger (Cello) and lasts approximately 7 minutes.

(c) Joseph Toltz