Forbidden Music Regained
A database containing over 2,000 works by suppressed composers
Since 1996, Leo Smit Stichting has brought music by suppressed composers to life. Sometimes music is heard for the first time, sometimes it resounds after 75 years. We would like to share what we’ve discovered with a wider audience. Every musician can write history with music of unheard-of beauty, awaiting performance. Music that deserves an audience. Every programmer can choose untrodden paths and suprise their audience. Every listener should have access to the most beautiful music, without censoring. Join us in discovering forbidden music.
Search and find
Our English language website Forbidden Music Regained offers access to more than 2,000 compositions of suppressed composers. We invite you to browse the database by visiting the works list at the bottom of each composer’s biography. Click a title and discover where you may find the sheetmusic. If we know of a recording, you will find it here. You may even find a direct link to listen online.
However, a more specific search is also possible: for instance by selecting a genre (vocal music, chamber music, orchestral music), selecting specific instrumentations (string quartet, piano solo, choir, flute and piano and much more) or filtering the year in which a work was composed. You may want to filter published works (or works that have never been published) or narrow your search down to composers of your choice. From the results list, it is immediately clear which works can be heard online.
Almost all manuscripts have been scanned, you can order them online.
Join us
Are you a musician performing music found in our treasure trove? Why don’t you make a recording, share it online and inform us with an email. We will add your recording to Forbidden Music Regained. Did you make a computer edition of the manuscript? We can help you publish it. Just contact us.
And donate
Maintaining and expanding the site costs (a lot of) effort and money. Leo Smit Stichting fully depends on private donations. We really need your support!
“I continue to admire and learn so much from the incredible resource that you created. It makes it so easy for us to program and call attention to the extraordinary music and musicians of suppressed Netherland composers. I never cease to be impressed by the amount and quality of music by these composers, who also lived so courageously.”
Let forbidden music sound again
In the Second World War, many composers were silenced because of their Jewish descent or their resistance. Their music was forbidden. The Leo Smit Stichting carries out research, tells composers' stories, makes sheet music available and performs forgotten music. Together with musicians, programmers, researchers and listeners we give composers their rightful place in music history.
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