The Brothers Hambourg
Eric Koch

A lively account of the remarkable Hambourg brothers – Mark, Jan, Boris and Clement. Their father, Professor Michael Hambourg, escaped Tsarist oppression for England. His oldest son, Mark, studied with Leschetizky and pursued a career as an international piano virtuoso.

In 1910 Michael Hambourg took his three younger sons to Toronto, where he established the Hambourg Conservatory of Music.

Jan, a violinist, married Isabelle McClung, close friend of novelist Willa Cather, and moved to Europe. He appears as “Uncle Jan” in Yehudi Menuhin’s autobiography and was a scholar and editor of Bach’s music for violin.

Boris, a cellist, co-founded the Hart House String Quartet. A ­favourite interest of Vincent Massey, it became a major Canadian musical institution and toured widely.

Clement, pianist and the self-styled black sheep, was proprietor of the House of Ham­bourg, one of Toronto’s first jazz clubs.

Born in Germany, in 1919, Eric Koch left for England as a refugee in 1935. In 1940 he was interned as an “enemy alien” and shipped to Canada. He wrote about his experiences as an ­enemy alien in his well-known book Deemed Suspect.