26/05/2026
A folded note found in the coat of a murdered Hungarian soldier changed the life of one of the greatest Jewish composers of the twentieth century, leading him to rediscover his Jewish identity and eventually make his home in Israel.
André Hajdu was born in Hungary just a few years before World War II into a richly varied musical world. “On my mother’s side,” he later recalled, “they knew Chopin and Schumann. My father’s family, meanwhile, remained devoted to the Romani music of the cafés.” Both traditions filled the home in which he grew up.
When the N**is invaded Hungary, Hajdu’s father was sent into the Hungarian army's forced labor service, where many Jews and others deemed undesirable by the regime found themselves. His mother, meanwhile, managed through extraordinary courage and resourcefulness to hide in different locations in Budapest with young André, narrowly escaping deportation to the concentration camps.
Against all odds, Hajdu and his mother survived. Just ten days after they entered the ghetto, it was liberated by the Red Army.
And yet it was there, amid destruction and survival, that Hajdu first discovered the deeper power of music. The piano lessons he had taken as a child suddenly took on new meaning when he saw how music could comfort, uplift, and restore a sense of humanity to the Jews around him.
Hajdu’s father, too, survived the forced labor camps on the Russian front, eventually walking all the way back from the heart of Russia to Budapest. Against all odds, the family was reunited.
But many others forced into those labor battalions never returned.
One of them was Miklós Radnóti.
Today remembered as one of the greatest Hungarian poets of the twentieth century, Radnóti was sent to forced labor three separate times because he was Jewish. During the third deployment, he was executed by his commanders.
When his body was discovered, a folded note was found in the pocket of his coat.
Inside was a poem titled "Forced March."
Remember it, we’ll come back to it.
Hajdu never forgot what he had learned in the ghetto about the power of music. He went on to study at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, the most prestigious music institution in Hungary.
As part of his studies, he immersed himself in Romani (or Gypsy) musical traditions. He traveled alongside Roma communities, documenting their music with extraordinary devotion and precision, work that amazed both his teachers and everyone who heard it.
His fascination with Romani music eventually led him to compose "Gypsy Cantata," a groundbreaking work that brought Romani musical traditions to some of Hungary’s most prestigious concert halls.
And then, somehow, Radnóti’s note - remember? - found its way to a student who headed the Radnóti Society. The student approached Hajdu and asked him to compose music for the poem.
At the time, Hajdu thought little of it. “Just another melody for a song,” he told himself.
But it would become the turning point of his life.
Something shifted inside him when he encountered "Forced March" and the story behind Radnóti's note. If the ghetto had marked Hajdu’s first revelation, the discovery of music’s power and his own calling, then Radnóti’s poem sparked a second awakening.
He left Hungary and spent years traveling across Europe and North Africa, composing, teaching and performing works that brought him acclaim and recognition. Yet something continued to pull at him beneath the surface.
In time, Hajdu underwent a profound spiritual transformation. He embraced religious observance and settled in Israel in 1966, where he began teaching composition at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music. He quickly became one of the central figures in Israeli music education, mentoring generations of students and eventually receiving the Israel Prize for Music.
When André Hajdu passed away in 2016, he left behind an extraordinary and wide-ranging musical legacy. Yet despite the many decades he spent in Israel, many of the works he composed were never performed here.
Now, for the first time, these pieces will be performed at the National Library of Israel by the Israeli Chamber Project during a special concert titled "Hajdu’s Hungary." The concert is part of our "Resonance" series.
The concert will take place on Tuesday, June 2, marking ten years since Hajdu’s passing. We invite you to discover the music of one of the greatest musicians ever to live and create in Israel, and to view special items from Hajdu’s archive preserved at the National Library.
See the first comment below for a link to more details and tickets!
This concert is made possible by the generous support of Suzie and Bruce Kovner and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation.
Pictured: André Hajdu (right) alongside Miklós Radnóti (left), who was murdered at the age of 35.
Israeli Chamber Project הפרויקט הקאמרי הישראלי
