Hans Franco Mendes

Hans Franco Mendes was born in Amsterdam on 15 December 1890 in a musical family. Earlier generations of the Franco Mendes family included a cellist and a violinist, two brothers living and performing in Paris in the 1840s. Both Hans Franco Mendes' parents were passionate amateur musicians; his father David played the cello in a trio with pianist Jan Willem Kersbergen and violinist Simon van Adelsberg. His mother Jacoba Franco Mendes-Calisch was an accomplished singer. Young Hans witnessed many concerts at home and made his debut at the piano when a famous pianist, after an impressive recital, failed to accompany Jacoba in some Schubert songs. Hans was also a full cousin of conductor and pianist Martin Spanjaard (18 months younger), as their mothers were sisters. He received his first piano lessons from Kersbergen and composer and pianist Simon van Milligen and moved to Cologn in his teens to study piano with Carl Friedberg and composition with Konrad Ramrath and Otto Klauwell.

After the First World War, Franco Mendes formed a duo with cellist Guillaume Hesse and often accompanied singers. In these concerts, he also played his own compositions. In 1925, he became head teacher for piano at the Leiden Toonkunst Music School and was appointed director in 1937.

Freed from Theresienstadt

Hans Franco Mendes and his wife Elsa Ida Franco Mendes-Boas were interned in camp Barneveld because they were placed on a list of Jews with special merit. Prisoners of this camp were led to believe that they were shielded from going to the ‘work camps’ in the east. However, on 29 September 1943, all prisoners – including Hans and Elsa – were brought to transit camp Westerbork. A year later, the Franco Mendes couple was deported to Theresienstadt. On 7 February 1945, after many months of negotiation between Swiss diplomats and Heinrich Himmler, a train left Theresienstadt carrying 1,200 prisoners. Among the 400 Dutch Jews arriving in Switzerland were Hans and Elsa, as well as harpist Rosa Spier and violinist Sam Swaap. A programme kept in the archives of Hans Franco Mendes shows that he and Swaap performed in the Dutch Club in Lausanne on 30 June 1945, on the occasion of the birthday of H.R.H. Prince Bernhard.

After his repatriation to the Netherlands, Franco Mendes resumed his position as director of the Leiden music school and started performing again. However due to poor health, he had to withdraw in 1947. After a long period of suffering, Hans Franco Mendes died on 27 April 1951.

Compositions

Franco Mendes greatly admired Reger and tried to convince Dutch colleagues of his genius, but hardly succeeded. In an interview in a women’s magazine in 1919, he admitted that he had met Reger more than once and sent him his compositions but never received any response. According to Franco Mendes, Reger was usually drunk when they met. The Dutch composer was less impressed with French composers; he referred to their music as 'fané', or wilted.

Although the director of the Cologn Conservatoire advised Franco Mendes to stick to the piano, his dream was to withdraw and live in a quite place, where he could totally dedicate himself to composing. Although that dream never materialised, he composed a fair number of works for piano solo and some songs. His works were performed by many pianists, including Willem Andriessen, Aline van Bärentzen, Jeanne-Marie Darré, Anna Stibbe, Theo van der Pas and Iskar Aribo. After a concert in Paris, Le Courrier Musical wrote how Franco Mendes was a staunch modernist, greatly inspired by jazz, especially in his Third Sonatina.

Some of Franco Mendes’ manuscripts survived the war and are now kept in the The Hague Municipal Archives, collections Netherlands Music Institute. Fortunately, many of his compositions were published before the war by Alsbach, surviving the war in private and institutional libraries, such as the radio library.

Sources:
Archive Hans Franco Mendes, The Hague Municipal Archives, Collections Netherlands Music Institute, archive no. 3052-01
Oorlogsbronnen.nl
Delpher.nl